


when our souls grow dark (we are set alight)

by coppertears



Series: when our souls grow dark (we are set alight) [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Destruction, EXOReliefFund, M/M, Magic, Magic!AU, Series, Slow Burn, Violence, elemental wizards, enemies to (reluctant) friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 01:37:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7200203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coppertears/pseuds/coppertears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sometimes the world crumbles when light and darkness collide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. light

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the changes. I've decided to keep this instead as an ongoing, chaptered fic to help keep up with things.

  
**when our souls grow dark (we are set alight)**  
kai/kyungsoo  
pg-13  
summary: sometimes the world crumbles when light and darkness collide.

 

this fic is for [](http://thisismylastlie.livejournal.com/profile)[**thisismylastlie**](http://thisismylastlie.livejournal.com/) as part of her [](http://exorelieffund.livejournal.com/profile)[**exorelieffund**](http://exorelieffund.livejournal.com/) bid! apologies for taking so long, life gets in the way of things. this is only the first part, _light_ ; the second part, _dark_ , will be uploaded sometime after midterms. the fanfics for the next two bids will follow after that. thank you for reading, and i'm sorry for the delay.:( 

**i. light**

> _on the cusp of night and day, there stands a realm bordered by clouds in the north, and miles of thick forests in the south. east is where the sun’s home is. west is moon’s humble hut. beyond that, legends speak of another realm cut out of the fabric of darkness -- but no one has ever laid eyes on it._

 

 

 

 

kyungsoo is sunk ankle-deep into the ground when the doors to his greenhouse are flung open, the morning ushering in junmyeon and his daily summons. he stifles the groan rising out of his lips. he’s been testing out the consistency of the soil, manipulating it to make a dent beneath his feet, and now junmyeon is here. kyungsoo has nothing against the head of the inner council, but it will take hours before he can resume his work.

“morning, kyungsoo,” junmyeon says, tone frigid despite the smile he’s wearing. “i hope i’m not bothering you and your...quicksand.” there is a subtle lift of his brow as he takes in the sight of the earth wizard in an oversized black shirt, black pants and sneakers.

“it’s not quicksand,” kyungsoo says. he taps the ground with his foot, channeling the electricity coursing through his veins into the bedrock, coaxing it to rise back up. soon the dent smoothes itself out and he’s standing pretty level to junmyeon. “it’s loam. i’m trying to understand how it responds to certain manipulations. and no, you’re not being a bother, sir junmyeon. what brings you here this --” kyungsoo squints up at the clear glass ceiling. “ -- this sunny morning?”

“ah, yes.” junmyeon adjusts the clasp of his robes resting against the pulse of his neck. he swallows and looks around the place. “it’s a matter that’s best discussed within the chamber. the others have been informed; i came round to check on you because i doubted you’d be at your house.”

“of course,” kyungsoo says. he dusts off his palms, watches the dirt hang onto his fingers before dropping down. “i’ll just change into my robes.”

“i need to check on sehun as well, so i’ll go on ahead,” junmyeon says. kyungsoo wrinkles his nose in understanding. sehun, the air wizard and also the youngest in the council, is as flighty as his element. he’s unpredictable enough that the thought he might be riding whirlwinds across the baked, dry land in the east won’t surprise anyone.

“i’ll be along soon.” kyungsoo takes tentative steps backward. his robes, he knows, are kept in a little island at the back of the greenhouse. “good luck finding sehun.”

for a moment, junmyeon’s shoulders sag. “that kid,” he sighs. “talented, smart -- and yet so reckless.” he shakes his head. then he gathers the tension in his body, winds it tight and pushes it to a corner, and the smile is back full force. “but i _will_ find him. see you at the chamber, kyungsoo.”

kyungsoo nods. he watches as junmyeon makes his way out of the greenhouse, taking the morning with him. now all that is illuminating the place are bits of starlight and a pie slice of sun creeping on the borders of the dome-shaped glass ceiling. then he murmurs a spell beneath his breath and lets the ground carry him on its own, pulling back and back and back, until he’s reached the island.

in reality it is more a patch of grass big enough for the shack that kyungsoo’s built on it, ringed by a shallow pond filled with plants and little fish. kyungsoo had little power over water, but he’d searched deep enough to feel the spaces that were less solid and more fluid in nature, and he’d shifted the ground around in order to let the water come gushing into the bowl-shaped dent he’d made.

he brings up the flat rocks resting on the bed of the pond, taking care to let them fall back after he’s hopped off to the next stone. it isn’t long before his sneakers hit the grass and he’s walking toward the shack. it’s a small thing, fashioned out of fallen logs and sticks scattered throughout the greenhouse, a mat of leaves woven together serving as a roof. inside, the floor is made of hardened clay. there isn’t a lot of space, so the bed and the cabinet and a makeshift kitchen and improvised bathroom are all in one place. kyungsoo kicks off his sneakers and props them up against the door.

as the primary earth wizard in the realm and a member of the inner council, kyungsoo has a variety of robes. some are sandstone yellow cloth held at the waist by a belt of twine, worn for talks at the academy and visits to the outlying towns; some are chocolate brown satin with intricate vines sewn diagonally across the torso, meant for more formal dinners and conferences within the city; and some are deep emerald green silk with bands of embroidered golden wheat fields at the waist, hem, sleeves and collar, for any instance when he has to meet with the rest of the inner council members and when he is carrying out tasks as the earth wizard.

he takes out the latter kind of robes, slipping them on easily, and tightening the waistband an inch or two. an accompanying circlet of aventurine inlaid in gold goes on top of his head. he eyes his tattered sneakers with longing, before taking out thigh-high sandals and lacing them on. kyungsoo has no mirror, but the surface of the pond more than serves that purpose, and he takes a deep breath. he’s never liked these clothes and the intricacy of design. it feels a bit like he’s a doll, dressed up and made up and never quite taken seriously until he solves some earth-related problem, which is rare enough in the city.

he brings the stones back up, raising them a little higher so his robes don’t get wet. it’s a process that makes him miss chanyeol’s constant presence in his life in the years before they became part of the council. the fire wizard could mold balls of flame out of the fate lines in his palms, and whenever the two of them got wet, he’d let the ball drift closer to their bodies, generating enough heat to let them dry.

kyungsoo almost never sees him outside of council meetings. their lives, so intertwined in the past, are now skeins of thread running across separate tapestries. sometimes, when time permits, he and chanyeol go to an obscure cafe and order cheap, watery coffee along with a variety of pastries, talking away the slippery texture of time. they map out open areas and try new spells, cracks forming on the ground along with a strip of fire. but these are rare, and now he and chanyeol are lucky to pass by each other in the halls.

he takes a deep breath and walks out of the greenhouse, placing a hand on the knob and making sure that the thick stalks of thorns wrap around the door. outside the sun is beating hard on the city, its rays so bright they glow white against the clouds, and kyungsoo can feel himself sweating inside his robes. he has the benefit, at least, of having a shuttle waiting for his call any moment. it kicks up dust when it arrives where kyungsoo is, but the earth wizard waves the particles away and gets in.

the inner chamber is located deep in the heart of the academy, where children skilled at manipulating the elements are brought to and trained. bounded by endless white walls and gates of gold, the academy is composed of five four-storey buildings, each one devoted to a certain discipline: earth, or air, or fire, or water, or ice. at the back of the compound is a gigantic library containing textbooks of runes and spells for the elements, but access to the texts is limited by ranking and specialty within the academy and the wizard council. a manipulator of air is not allowed to touch or read textbooks for water manipulation; a fire manipulator looking for higher spells may be turned away if he or she has not passed the proficiency exams for fire manipulation, which are the basis for the new inductees to the wizard council every quadrennial.

the shuttle drops him off at the beginning of the dirt path leading up to the earth building. the place seems as empty as usual, its hallways collecting silence and dead air. through the years, fewer and fewer manipulators have shown any affinity to the green element, and only ever two or three have any real talent. this quadrennial, there are eight hopefuls. from the reports he’s received from jonghyun and hyunsik, though, none of them have attained the skill level necessary for the proficiency exams.

kyungsoo sighs. sometimes he wishes that sehun’s problems were his own. the air wizard’s always got troops of hopefuls coming in every year, and he’s caused tornadoes to whirl down hallways one too many times in an attempt to clear some of them off.

he hears low chatter coming from one of the indoor gardens, and through the glass he can see jonghyun’s class deep in a discussion about the ways of transforming soil. kyungsoo considers dropping by, but then junmyeon’s face pops into his thoughts, and he quickens his steps.

each wizard has his own way of entering the inner chamber through his office. for kyungsoo, it is a tunnel snaking below the academy and straight into the chamber, accessed through a specific marble tile. the tile never stays in one place. kyungsoo takes a deep breath and concentrates, sending out feelers for the hollow quality that will indicate the presence of the tunnel. it doesn’t take long; the tile is three steps forward, its edges glowing green, and kyungsoo causes it to crumble. he jumps into the opening, body falling through the fabric of oblivion, before he lets magic surge into his fingertips and wills the ground to appear. when it does, it is made of packed loam with a layer of sand.

kyungsoo lies there for a while. ahead of him, the tunnel goes on and on, its walls embedded with malachite. he remember junmyeon’s frown and he groans, pushing himself up. soon kyungsoo’s reached the end of the tunnel and he aims a spell upward, making an opening within the darkness. then he’s climbing through three square inches of light, straight into the inner chamber where the five chairs have been assembled.

“kyungsoo!”

before he can so much as take a step forward, kyungsoo finds himself in the arms of a familiar giant. “hello, chanyeol,” he says, holding down the grin that’s flicking across his lips. “what did you burn today?”

chanyeol takes a step back and gestures at his robes. “is it that obvious?”

“you smell like smoke,” kyungsoo says. “so yes, it _is_ that obvious.”

“he burned down his wardrobe,” a voice says, and kyungsoo turns around to see minseok already settled in his chair. frost forms in a circle beneath his feet. the chair itself is made of solid, clear ice dusted over with an inch or so of snow, and there are snowflakes caught up in the folds of minseok’s robes. “apparently junmyeon told him off for being late three meetings in a row, so he panicked and everything he touched burst into flames.”

kyungsoo shakes his head at his friend, who is now looking down at the floor. “it’s a good thing your robes are fire-resistant, then, isn’t it?”

“yeah,” chanyeol says, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. his hair is longer now, dyed a shade between orange and brown, and his bangs are only just held back by his circlet. the ruby inlaid in gold winks at kyungsoo, reminding him of sunbeams and dawn rising and a wisp of fire in a candle’s wick living on through the night. “otherwise, i’d be a dead man now.”

“not dead,” kyungsoo says, making his way to his chair, “just naked.”

“that’s as good as dead in junmyeon’s eyes,” chanyeol mutters. a laugh escapes minseok’s lips at the comment. “but anyway, i’m not the last one to arrive this time around.”

“sehun’s never been all that early,” minseok says with a frown, “but junmyeon’s always the first one in the chamber.”

kyungsoo examines his chair, watching the way a circle of gray sand forms when he’s just steps away. the chair is made out of a single block of wood, vines and leaves braided into the grain, its surface free of any splinters. he reaches out to touch the swirls in the seat, whispers of age racing along his fingertips. it makes him think about just how old the world is, how the earth shifting throughout has had more lives than the number of generations in kyungsoo’s family, how appearance never betrays years.

chanyeol settles into his chair beside sehun’s, the crackle of flames leaping up around him audible in the tiny room. minseok makes a face. there is heat crawling outwards from where chanyeol is, and a circle of cracked brimstone with tendrils of lava is coming alive below the chair. kyungsoo thanks the heavens that he’s not right beside chanyeol. wood catches all too easily, and ice melts at the slightest lick of fire. he sees minseok tensing up in his chair and feels the temperature drop -- it is the ice wizard’s knee-jerk reaction to the rising degrees.

the fire wizard gives them an apologetic smile. with a few murmured words, the flames grow calmer and crackle with less intensity than before, and soon the black marble of chanyeol’s chair is visible.

“sorry about that,” chanyeol says. “the flames aren’t usually that big, but i was too distracted to control them.”

“it’s alright,” minseok says, but the tension still sits in the line of his shoulders. “it’s just that junmyeon isn’t here, so if the fire gets to be too much, kyungsoo and i are goners.”

“sorry,” chanyeol repeats. there is a pout tugging at his lower lip.

kyungsoo glances over at the water and air chairs. without their respective wizards, they look lifeless. “where did sehun go off to?” he asks. “junmyeon was looking for him a while ago. it’s probably the reason why they’re both late.”

“isn’t he supposed to be somewhere in the eastern deserts? there was a task for him yesterday.”

“what kind of task?” minseok’s eyebrows knit themselves together. “if it were a task sanctioned by the wizard council, don’t you think junmyeon would have known where he is?”

chanyeol shrugs, a lost look sketched across his features. “all i know is that he received a scroll yesterday, and he floated off muttering about deserts and urgent matters. i wasn’t about to go after him when he’d wrapped himself up in a twister.”

kyungsoo glances over at minseok. the ice wizard’s face is troubled, and his fingers dig crescents into the armrests of his chair. “i haven’t heard anything about any trouble in the eastern deserts,” kyungsoo says. “most people don’t venture there.”

“i haven’t, either,” minseok says. “and you’re right. hardly anyone goes to the eastern deserts. whatever the task he was given, i don’t think it was in any way sanctioned by the council, much less junmyeon.”

“i should have --”

a hole opens up in the wall, and chanyeol is climbing up his chair with a series of yelps as water rushes into the chamber. with a snap of his fingers, minseok freezes the geyser, and he and kyungsoo rush to the hole just as junmyeon clambers in with sehun clinging to his back. there is soot in his hair and dirt in his fingers, and breaths come hard for him. meanwhile, the air wizard’s eyes are closed, and there are diagonal cuts all over his arms and part of his torso.

“what happened?” minseok demands as kyungsoo extricates sehun from junmyeon’s hold. the water wizard doesn’t seem to be in any fit state to answer, almost collapsing in minseok’s arms the moment his burden is taken off him, and his eyes flutter shut.

kyungsoo stomps hard on the ice, shattering it and then transforming the shards into dirt. he lets it sink deep into the floor, the clumps of soil and stone blending with the wood, until there is no sign at all of the disturbance. minseok seals the hole in the wall. together, they set down the wizards on their chairs. it’s at this point that chanyeol climbs down his chair, convinced that no sudden burst of water will swamp him.

“how bad is he?” minseok whispers, glancing over at sehun.

kyungsoo steps back as a strong breeze cradles sehun and a seat woven out of clouds supports his lithe body, swirls of air gathering below the clouds. once the wind settles down, he eyes the height at which sehun is suspended, and he gives chanyeol a look.

“oh! sorry,” chanyeol says, almost tripping over the hem of his robes as he walks over. he peeks at sehun’s form. “the wounds seem dry,” he calls out to minseok, who is now unclasping junmyeon’s cloak. “at least, they’re not bleeding. they’re pretty shallow. a salve or two will be enough.”

“kyungsoo?”

“wait,” kyungsoo says, heading over to his own chair. he places a hand on the sand, reaching down the depths and pulling _up up up_ , until a small chest of rosewood emerges. he opens it and pulls out a bottle of purple liquid and a jar of green ointment. sehun hates them. but right now, sehun is fast asleep, and he needs them.

chanyeol takes the bottle and the jar from him, and kyungsoo goes off to fetch bandages from one of the cabinets pushed up against the walls. minseok is still preoccupied with returning junmyeon back to consciousness.

bandages in hand, kyungsoo returns to chanyeol’s side, watching as the taller man first washes the cuts with the purple liquid and then sets them with green ointment. as he swaps the bottle and the jar for the bandages, chanyeol starts murmuring a series of runes. the bandages glow red when they are wrapped around the cuts, pulsating with a regulated kind of heat, until chanyeol’s spell tapers off and he secures the bandages with a pin. he and kyungsoo step back, letting the wisps of clouds reclaim sehun and turn the air wizard over to a more comfortable position.

“how’s junmyeon?” kyungsoo asks, and he and chanyeol walk over to the water chair. chanyeol stops a few paces away, wary of the coral-and-pearl-encrusted chair and the layer of water flowing down it, forming a clear, calm pool beneath.

minseok raises a finger to his lips, his other hand brushing away the fringe of hair covering the head of the council’s eyes. he taps the center of junmyeon’s forehead once, twice. then a cloud of ice crystals pours from his palms and he shapes it into a ball, before gently taking hold of the water wizard’s slackened jaw and opening his mouth. he pushes the ball of ice crystals onto junmyeon’s tongue. runes spill out of his lips, growing louder and louder, crowding in the air and making the temperature drop until junmyeon’s entire body emits an aura caught between silver and blue.

the water wizard’s eyes flash open, and he snaps to attention in his chair.

“good morning,” minseok says, smile in place and voice full of cheer. “you’re late.”

junmyeon blinks at them all, bewildered. “i -- sehun, he’s injured -- i had to fetch him --”

“it’s okay,” kyungsoo says, pushing the water wizard back down when he tries to stand. “chanyeol and i have tended to him.”

“what happened?” the ice wizard asks. he settles back in his chair, the smile now a fragment drifting on his lips but gone from his eyes, and his sleeves rustle as he links his fingers together.

junmyeon looks at where sehun floats in the embrace of clouds, worry braided into his brows and stamped all over the wrinkles running across his forehead. “i don’t know what happened to him,” he says. “i only came to the eastern deserts and found him in the midst of a twister. it took a while to subdue it; water is ineffective against air, as you well know. but he sensed my presence, and the twister broke apart, enough for me to get to him. there was a butterfly perched on his shoulder, and it flew away when i drew near. i suspect sehun created the twister himself as some sort of protection. it was pretty strong, and i expended too much energy trying to subdue it -- it took even more to create a path straight to the chamber while carrying him.”

“we’ll have to wait until he wakes,” kyungsoo says, walking back to his chair. chanyeol does the same. “but for now, perhaps we can try to trace the messenger.”

“the messenger?” junmyeon repeats. “what messenger?”

kyungsoo glances at chanyeol. the fire wizard starts, surprise causing the flames around his chair to leap up and crackle for a good five seconds. “well, i don’t know who it is, i mean _was_ ,” he says, fidgeting with his robes. “but sehun received a scroll instructing him to go to the eastern deserts. if we could find out where he got the message from, then we may understand this situation better.”

junmyeon frowns. “a message that didn’t pass through me? what were the officials in charge of correspondence doing? i’ve never been away from the office, and they know protocols demand that tasks requiring the aid of anyone from the inner council should be screened. in fact, _sehun_ himself knows that. he shouldn’t have rushed to complete it.”

kyungsoo glances over at the youngest member of the council. yes, sehun knows the procedures. but he’s always been the most volatile, the most flighty -- not quite hot-headed, but careless. the air wizards have always had unpredictable temperaments. some could be placid, like a gentle breeze; others were more forceful, more restless, like tornadoes sweeping through the landscape. the one before sehun, lee jinki, had been quiet and still; a draft more than a gust. sehun, though, is calm in appearance alone. beyond it, he leaves the earth a churned-up mess. debris is his signature, a brewing storm is his preferred mode of transportation, and he fashions strong gales for fun. but the power is there, drumming away in his veins until he lets it rise, up and out and into the atmosphere. for all junmyeon’s misgivings, the entire council knows the air chair won’t accept any other master. not at the moment, at least.

“it must have been urgent,” minseok says, his tone placating. the temperature in the room drops, but only to a point that has heat settled in a corner but not quite gone, a kind of coolness that drifts above skin but doesn’t burrow into the pores. “and it must have been compelling enough to make him act, regardless of whether or not it had gone through the process.”

junmyeon huffs. the expression in his eyes makes it clear that he’s still disappointed, but kyungsoo knows the head wizard enough by now. junmyeon is too fond of sehun, and combined with the fact that sehun is injured, the threat that ripples across the surface of his chair won’t materialize.

“we can figure it out later,” kyungsoo says. he clutches the armrests of his chairs, running his fingers over the grain. “but right now, maybe we can talk about why you called this meeting in the first place. i’m sure it had nothing to do with sehun.”

“i don’t know,” junmyeon says. he takes a deep breath. “now that i think about it, it may be linked.”

“what is it?” minseok asks, leaning forward.

the water wizard raises his right hand, palm facing the ceiling. a lone raindrop wavers inches above his fingertips. his brows knit themselves together as he concentrates, lips moving mere millimeters, until the raindrop grows into a huge, transparent orb. within it, a city of quicksilver emerges.

“is that…?”

“ _aeterna_ ,” chanyeol whispers, his eyes growing wide. “built straight out of the rocky cliffs on the western border.”

“we’ve never had a problem with _aeterna_ ,” kyungsoo says. but as the words leave his lips, a strange feeling curls up in the bottom of his stomach. it stretches itself out, climbing and climbing, hovering just below his chest. “they know how to take care of themselves, they’ve always been self-sufficient. the common magic amongst the people there is far stronger than normal.”

“i know,” junmyeon says. “but it isn’t invincible. no city, or thing, or person is. and sometimes when it is faced with a force greater than anything it has ever seen…” the quicksilver city glows until the structures have taken on the same bright white coat, a lone wave washing over them. then in a blink of an eye, the white disintegrates into pieces of black, swatches of loss swirling inside the orb. “...it can crumble.”

chanyeol is on his feet in seconds. “ _what_? why are we not there, why have we not heard of this? why isn’t it on the news? this is _aeterna_ , the eternal city -- why are we _just sitting here_?” for a moment, the brown of his eyes is all alight, turning almost orange in a hue. tongues of flames dance in the spaces between his fingers.

minseok straightens in alarm, and a layer of frost forms over his robes as he tries to keep the temperature in the room balanced. “calm down, chanyeol.”

“we don’t want people to panic,” junmyeon says, “and help has already been sent. as soon as the news arrived, supplies and aid specialists were dispatched. it’s all taken care of, chanyeol, so you’d best return to your chair before you combust.” chanyeol settles back in his chair, but though the heat has dissipated, it seems he’s set on _simmer_ still. “here is the odd thing: though the buildings collapsed, no one was harmed badly. yes, there were a few injuries, some bumps and scrapes. scores of people should have been dead or pinned down by the debris, but so far everyone is accounted for, and there have been no wounds which are far beyond the aid specialists’ capabilities. also, the water wells, livestock pens and greenhouses are untouched altogether.”

“that’s… strange,” minseok says. he fiddles with a snowflake. “i’m relieved to hear there are no casualties, but if you say that everything has been destroyed except for the wells, the pens and the greenhouses, then…”

“it _is_ strange,” junmyeon says. “no one seems to know what caused the damage. one minute they were going about their usual business. the next, they were all curled up in the blasted shells of their homes and temples, their belongings crushed to dust. no natural phenomenon could have caused it. even if we say there must have been some fleeting tremor strong enough to break the city in a heartbeat, that still doesn’t explain why the damage was limited only to the structures. we would have been dealing with mass burials otherwise. ”

“you think it’s deliberate,” kyungsoo pipes up. beneath his grip on his armrest, he can feel a tiny bud poke its way out of the wood. “you think some external force caused the buildings to collapse, but ensured that no one would be hurt, or at least not in a way that would have been impossible to heal. and that this force also made sure not to touch the structures that the people relied on for their daily necessities.”

“that doesn’t make much sense,” chanyeol murmurs. “that would have to be a very controlled force, very precise. but is a force like that even possible?”

minseok and junmyeon glance at each other. something about the way the air grows thick and viscous between them reminds kyungsoo of intimacy, a certain kind of intimacy that he and chanyeol and sehun have yet to be part of. after all, minseok and junmyeon had been elected to the council a quadrennial before kyungsoo, chanyeol and sehun had even taken the exams. the five of them had learned to work together through the years, but there were still things that were boxed up and held at arm’s length, things that minseok and junmyeon hadn’t told them -- maybe because they wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, or couldn’t tell them at all.

“no,” minseok says just before chanyeol starts fidgeting in his seat. “no, a force like that isn’t possible. not a natural one, at least. but magic -- really strong magic, wielded by an excellent wizard -- is worth considering.”

kyungsoo lets this sink in. “a wizard who chooses to _destroy_?”

“the target seems to only have been the foundations of the city, and there were enough structures and resources left for the people to survive,” junmyeon says. “believe me when i say that if it had been some kind of freak phenomenon, nothing and no one would have been spared. magic seems to be the answer. the fact that the destruction was so controlled is proof enough of how skilled the wizard is.”

“but _who_?” chanyeol presses. “who could it have been? all of the wizards in the realm are monitored, and no reports have come up about someone possessing this kind of ability.”

“yes, all of the wizards in the realm are monitored.” junmyeon lets the orb drift down and watches it sink into the pond. “but not the ones outside it.”

kyungsoo’s stomach twists. the way junmyeon says it, the word _outside_ seems like a frightening entity. the syllables of it, the hard, flat quality of the sounds as they fall out of junmyeon’s lips, and the mystery that comes attached to it -- it almost morphs into a monster. all his life, he’s only known the realm. he knows there are borders, limits to the land he was free to roam, but it all felt so vast that there couldn’t be possibly be anything past the forests and deserts and the open seas.

now he’s reminded of the tales that sparked every little boy’s bed back in their bunks, when he was not yet ten summers old and still adapting to life at the academy. he’d been from one of the outlying towns and chosen a bed pushed up against the far end of the room, blankets thrown over his head, but he could still hear the other boys’ conversations. they’d fashioned masks out of cloth and dulled their tongues with hisses, whispering myths about another realm that was made of shadows. kyungsoo’s dreams came alive with specters that had unusual powers, his pulse quickening even in sleep.

“the ones outside it,” chanyeol repeats. his eyes look glazed over as though, like kyungsoo, he’d stepped out of the room for a while to drift in the past. “when i was younger, i used to hear stories, but i never thought…”

“in the entire time that you studied at the academy,” minseok says, “you were never taught about the lands that lay past the borders. for good reason, too, because no man has yet gained the nerve to travel through the forests, or the deserts, or the seas.”

“no man,” kyungsoo says, but his voice is so low that he’s almost speaking to himself. “but what about wizards?”

minseok tilts his head. a small smile tugs on his lips. “an easy feat for most wizards,” he says. “for anyone at all with an above average magical aptitude. you could make it through with a few spells that would help with survival. but the academy discouraged any mapping of the geography past its borders, because that would have meant plenty of students trying their luck. and while some may have the talent to figure out what they need to do, many would have never come back.”

“the point is,” junmyeon says, “most people simply assume that there is nothing else except for more forests and deserts. but that isn’t quite true.”

‘what else is there?” chanyeol asks, his tone hushed. kyungsoo can’t quite find the right words to speak.

“another realm.” minseok pauses, lets this bit of information sink in. kyungsoo feels he’s the one sinking, though. he’s drowning, bubbles escaping his lips, and it’s just so hard to wrap his head around what the ice wizard is saying. “there is another realm beyond our borders. few people know this, but the past council members called it _obscurum_. very little contact has been established with that realm, but its magic thrives on darkness, and the wizards there use spells that require more than just the five elements.”

“before he officially stepped down from his position and passed on the ownership of the chair to me,” junmyeon says, “leeteuk -- the former water wizard, if you still recall -- took me aside and told me about _obscurum_. its council is composed of powerful wizards. the head of the council can apparently manipulate a person’s will. another member controls space, and yet another has command over time. with talents like that, destroying a city seems like child’s play.”

“are they…” kyungsoo hesitates. “are they really that powerful?”

junmyeon bites his lip. “leeteuk never told me anything beyond what he’d gleaned from jinki when the air wizard had gone past the borders. but the way he said it back then -- even though i never met those wizards, i know they are strong. their magic isn’t the ordinary kind. and i can’t tell anything for certain, but if we were to think of the damage as being caused by magic, the only wizards who could have cast them are those of the other realm.”

“but what would they gain from it?” kyungsoo asks. “do they want to take over our realm?”

“if they wanted to take over,” minseok says, “they’d have aimed for the capital city, and we would have fallen. there is a wizard, after all, who is capable of manipulating a person’s will. no, i don’t think they want to take over. but certainly they have a goal. as to what it is, we can only guess.”

“we’ll have to be on our guard from now on,” junmyeon adds. “sehun has already been injured. i’m not saying that this is directly linked to the destruction of _aeterna_ , and what we have are mere speculations at this point. still, we’ll have to tighten security for the outlying towns and cities, screen incoming and outgoing messages, and put emergency procedures in place.” he sighs and runs his hand through his hair. “but we can sort all of that out on another day. for now we must assist _aeterna_. i’ll be going out there tomorrow. minseok will be taking over, and chanyeol will be in charge of the academy’s operations. kyungsoo, you’re coming with me.”

“me?” kyungsook squeaks. it’s not like he’s never gone out to accomplish tasks. it’s just that he’s never done anything on such a huge scale, and he’s always done them alone, the sun being his only company. there is little an earth manipulator can help out with in the heart of an industrial city. bigger problems reside in the towns where agriculture is the main source of livelihood, but those concerns are most often solved by new shipments of rakes and spades and potted plants.

“of course. who else would it be?” junmyeon raises his eyebrows. “ice or any manipulation of temperature isn’t needed. fire will only worsen the heat that’s settled over the land. in fact, even _i_ am not needed, for the water wells are there still. but the land is scarred, and what it needs at the moment is the touch of one who is favored by the earth.”

“i --” kyungsoo stutters, his mind reeling at the possibilities that he’s been presented. spells bubble on the edges of his consciousness, misshapen runes playing in the spaces between gray matter and skull, and he finds himself recalling every bit of magic he’s been taught or learned himself. “i -- of course, yes, i’ll come with you.”

junmyeon nods. “good. this meeting is adjourned.” he casts a worried look over to where sehun is still suspended mid-air, asleep. “minseok and chanyeol, please carry sehun back to his rooms. kyungsoo, you’d best start packing.”

the air is still slimy with unanswered questions, but kyungsoo tries his best to sweep them under the rest of his thoughts. as junmyeon goes off to deal with documents, and minseok and chanyeol work together to haul sehun off to his living quarters, kyungsoo lingers in the tunnel leading the way out of the inner chamber.

tomorrow he will have to help rebuild _aeterna_ , to gather bits and pieces of the broken ground and sew them back together again. and he hopes, he hopes with all his heart, that he will be able to do his task well.

 

 

 

 

 _aeterna_ is a three-day walk from the capital. it is a sunrise and sunset of hard riding on horseback. there is a train that zips across the miles and tears time to meaningless shreds, but a line has never been built to reach the eternal city. but there _are_ shuttles with skilled drivers, and kyungsoo’s particular shuttle brings him west within eight hours.

the gates of the city are intact and flung open wide, and for a brief moment, kyungsoo lets himself believe that the damage won’t be as bad as junmyeon had made it out to be. the water wizard is riding ahead of him now, the royal blue of his shuttle still unmarred despite the amount of dusty paths it had traveled through. kyungsoo’s sure that the opposite is true for _his_ , but then he’s never minded the dust. he lets himself sink back in his seat, his fists unclenching from where they’d bunched up his robes.

his sense of peace doesn’t last long, because as soon as the shuttle is past the watchtower, it reels to a stop in front of a boulder. past the boulder are mountains of debris, electrical posts bent in half, broken furniture thrown every which way, and the occasional glint of glass shards. through the window of the shuttle, kyungsoo sees junmyeon step out. after a moment’s hesitation, he does the same, bracing himself for the way the ground beneath his feet will feel.

as soon as he’s out, it hits him hard: wave upon wave of nausea, of a nameless emotion twisting up his veins, and an overwhelming sensation of pain. he’s always had a tight affinity with the earth, sensitive to it and its needs in a way that makes it almost seem the very soil itself is a part of his soul. he knows when it is happy, like in the capital city or back home, content with its lot and the fact that it is cared for. but this land is far from happy. it is collapsing in on itself, bearing layers and layers of wounds. it is _grieving_.

“are you all right?”

kyungsoo almost doesn’t register the question. he flings his hands out for anything, any surface, and they meet the sun-baked metal of the shuttle. his palms scream but he ignores it, trying to regulate his breathing. _in, out_.

“kyungsoo?”

he screws his eyes shut, counts to three, and opens them again. “yes,” he whispers, and his tongue feels rough with the lie, “yes, i’m all right.” it takes all of his strength to straighten up, to try to tune everything else back into static-riddled frequencies.

junmyeoon looks worried. “are you sure? do you need medicine?”

“yes,” kyungsoo says. “i’m sure. i don’t need any medicine. i just -- it’s just -- the land is more damaged than i imagined.”

junmyeon’s face darkens. “that’s not a good thing, is it?”

“no.” kyungsoo shakes his head. he sends his feelers out, mutters a few runes on the tail end of a passing breeze, and steels his nerves as he probes the ground further. it’s with a sigh of relief that he says, “but nothing irreparable.”

“you can start working tomorrow,” junmyeon says, beginning to walk toward a cluster of gray tents in an area cleared of any rubble. “for now, perhaps you want to --”

“no,” kyungsoo says, and junmyeon stops in his tracks. the water wizard turns back with confusion on his face. “i’d like to start working today.”

junmyeon blinks. “but you’re tired,” he says. “you should rest, conserve your energy.”

“i’m fine. i need a bit of a head start, though, since so much repairing is needed. and, truthfully, i won’t be able to rest until i’ve made the land whole again.”

“well…” junmyeon frowns. “i do understand how much it bothers you. but don’t overexert yourself, okay?”

behind them, the shuttles have already turned away, heading for the field outside the gates where all vehicles are gathered. kyungsoo listens to the crunch of the wheels on scattered rocks. “okay.”

“try to come back in time for dinner,” junmyeon says. he looks like he wants to say more but decides against it, instead opting for, “good luck.” kyungsoo nods and watches him go, up until junmyeon disappears through the open flap of the largest gray tent in the cluster.

then, with the ground thrumming its insistence against the soles of his sandals, he makes his way west to where he knows the heart of the destruction is.

 

 

 

 

the sun is bleeding out its last rays by the time kyungsoo stumbles back to the encampment. save for a few splotches of mud on the hem of his robes, and dirt gathering beneath his feet, he looks clean. inside is a different story. he is worn down, torn down, his energy left in tatters and the wellspring of his magic a gaping hole. he’d set his strength on repairing entire rows of houses so the people can have somewhere to live other than beneath cramped, suffocating triangles of canvases. he’d mended roofs, smoothed out cracks in the ground, pushed trees’ roots back into the soil and let flowers raise their drooping heads again. it was only a fraction, though, of the task ahead of him; so much of the city was still in ruins. what made it harder was the fact that he had to ensure everything was sewn back into the rocky cliffs the city was built upon.

dinner is just starting when he manages to identify which tent serves as the mess hall. within the tent, dozens of long wooden tables are thrown together without rhyme or reason, people settling on benches like flies dropping after getting stuck in fly-paper. on a raised platform up front, kyungsoo makes out the blue of junmyeon’s robes amidst the deep red velvet of the robes that _aeterna_ ’s lawmakers wear. he hovers by the tables pushed up against the tent flap, trying to decide if he should go there, but then he plops on the nearby bench. he’s too exhausted to listen to a stream of political talk. all he wants is to eat dinner, whatever it may be, and find his own tent. he needs more spells, more runes; and he needs rest, because tomorrow it will be worse.

he finds himself wedged beside a dark-haired guy clad in a white tunic, accentuating the bronze of his skin even more. the food consists of vegetables tossed in some creamy sauce, a thick yellow soup, and a few slabs of meat. kyungsoo finishes everything, feeling his strength return with every bite, and he washes it all down with a gulp of water.

“not so hungry, are you?”

he almost falls out of his chair. kyungsoo turns to see a slight smirk pulling up the corners of the dark-haired guy’s lips.

“i don’t see how that is any of your business,” kyungsoo says, the words stiff as they march out of his mouth, and he tries to hold down the wave of embarrassment that rises in his veins.

“oh, i was merely wondering if i should offer you my own share,” the guy says, shrugging his shoulders. “don’t believe i’ve seen you here before.”

kyungsoo takes his glass and swirls it, trying to keep his eyes on anything but his nosy seatmate. “i don’t come from here,” he says.

“where do you come from, then?”

he wonders about the appropriateness of dumping a glass of water on the guy’s head. or perhaps causing the floor to cave in underneath his chair. kyungsoo braces himself and says, “the capital.”

the guy raises his eyebrows at that. “and what is someone from the capital doing here?”

“helping out,” kyungsoo hisses through gritted teeth. he throws his head back, lets the water soothe his dry throat. when he replaces the glass on the table, the guy has leaned back, eyeing him with some nameless expression coming alive inside dark irises.

“you must be the famed earth wizard,” he says, and something heavy seems to cling to the way he utters those words. “do kyungsoo, if i’m not mistaken?”

kyungsoo wants to say, _yes, you are very much mistaken_ , but he knows it’s impolite. besides, he has an inkling that almost everyone knows he’s here -- at least, that the earth wizard will be here to lend a hand, and it’s not like _aeterna_ is so vast to the point that no one will ever notice a brand new face.

he nods his head and collects his patience. “yes. and you are…?”

“i am…?” the man flashes him an impertinent grin before he erupts into a brisk, hoarse laugh. “i don’t think it matters who i am and what i do.”

kyungsoo narrows his eyes at him. “then don’t tell me who you are. tell me what you’re called.”

the man tilts his head. “what i’m called?” he considers this, and kyungsoo wonders why he even bothers asking when he knows what he’s getting is a lie. he can read it on the twitch of the man’s brow and the wrinkle of his nose, though what gives him away the most is a flicker of uncertainty across his face. “i call myself kai.”

“kyungsoo!”

kyungsoo whirls around, but he knows who it is from the sound of the voice alone. junmyeon is standing just a few feet away, a frown on his lips. he takes a step forward and hesitates, glancing back to the table where the other dignitaries are seated, and kyungsoo takes this as his cue to leave.

“nice meeting you, kai,” kyungsoo says, trying to be as courteous as possible. “i hope someone else may be able to satisfy your insatiable curiosity.”

“oh, i don’t think anyone else deserves my curiosity,” kai says, bringing his hands up to lower his hood. “good luck repairing the city, do kyungsoo.”

kyungsoo turns away, biting his tongue before he can think of making a response.

later, when he’s seated beside junmyeon, the water wizard leans toward him and asks, “who were you talking to?”

for some reason, kyungsoo finds himself unable to remember the name. there are letters swimming in the back of his head but they never quite connect. soon, even the features of his previous seatmate’s face are blurred, indistinct, dissolving into a vague image of white and black.

he shrugs. “no idea.”

 

 

 

 

it takes him and junmyeon over a week to help _aeterna_ get back on its feet. by the time the city’s populace is waving them goodbye along with cartloads of gifts and tokens, kyungsoo’s energy is burned down low, and he lets himself collapse inside his shuttle. runes stain his palms and arms a fading midnight blue, and the buzz of magic has never quite left his fingertips. he feels as if there are spells on the verge of escaping his lips, but he’s too spent to even spare them a thought. at least, he thinks, the pain of the earth has been dulled. his own headache has lessened as well.

layers of heat are still painted over the realm, and kyungsoo’s robes aren’t helping one bit. he puts up with it until he and junmyeon are deposited by their respective shuttles at the academy. then, nodding at each other, they take their individual paths to the inner council’s chambers.

the first thing he sees when he emerges from the hole in the ground is a tornado, not more than three feet in height, whirling in place at the center of the room. beside it, sehun is sitting indian-style. his brows are scrunched together in concentration, lips pressed tight, hands on either side of the tornado. minseok is in his chair, picking snowflakes off of the scrolls on his lap. at the other end of the room, chanyeol is pacing back and forth, leaving footprints of live coal that disappear as minseok adjusts the temperature every now and then.

junmyeon clears his throat, while kyungsoo makes his way over to his chair. chanyeol stops pacing. minseok looks up from the scrolls. only sehun ignores the sound and continues molding the tornado.

“no warm welcome?” junmyeon asks, his gaze directed at sehun.

“he’s fine,” chanyeol says, walking to his chair. “he woke up a day after you and kyungsoo left, and since then he’s been practicing spells. this is one of them. he’s been wanting to perfect this so he can present the air manipulators a demo.”

junmyeon scowls. “that’s not what i’m asking for.”

“we weren’t able to trace the messenger,” minseok says. “and thank goodness you’re here, now you can be the one to sign these.” he stands up and deposits the scrolls in junmyeon’s hands. the water wizard splutters.

“a _week_ spent cleaning up _aeterna_ , and this is what we get --”

“kyungsoo’s not complaining,” sehun interrupts. he keeps his eyes on the floor. “maybe you should sit down so we can begin.”

junmyeon opens his mouth. he closes it. he opens it again. “maybe i shouldn’t have saved you and carried you all the way here.”

“that would be very negligent of you,” sehun says. “i’m the youngest here. i’m still a minor. you’re responsible for me.” with that, he lets the tornado collapse in on itself, and it leaves a small pile of debris. sehun floats toward the air chair.

“waste of time,” junmyeon mutters. he drops the scrolls on a nearby table and joins the circle, settling in his chair. “any news at all regarding leads to what caused the destruction of _aeterna_?”

“maybe we can start off by asking sehun what exactly happened, since we’re all here,” kyungsoo says, interlocking his fingers. right now he wants nothing more than to be back in his greenhouse, experimenting with the soil and nurturing new plants, but he knows he has to be here.

sehun purses his lips and shrugs. “i don’t know.”

“you don’t know?” junmyeon raises his eyebrows. “you can’t _not_ know. you were supposed to be within the capital that day, but you ended up in the deserts.”

“i’ve also ended up in the forest,” sehun points out. “i’ve been to a lot of towns and cities in the realm.”

junmyeon narrows his eyes. “often you’ve gone there despite the fact that you weren’t supposed to.”

“it’s a way of learning,” sehun says. “a way of seeing the surroundings and getting used to how it differs from place to place. the capital is too crowded for my magic. i’d be lucky to find an area big enough to summon a strong gale.”

“sehun,” minseok says. his tone isn’t quite admonishing -- it’s neutral, more like he’s chosen to call the younger boy for something and forgotten it in the same breath.

“but you went to the eastern deserts,” junmyeon presses. “why were you at the eastern deserts?”

it’s always like this, kyungsoo muses, when the two of them are awake and caught in the same room. boxed in and prowling, as if they both have something to prove. junmyeon can never understand why sehun can’t be told to stay still, wait for instructions, and obey them. sehun refuses to be pinned down. often it’s the reason why their meetings are spent witnessing a verbal back-and-forth that’s on a parabolic take-off to nowhere.

sehun narrows his eyes. he plays with a wisp of cloud, fingers curling and twisting and turning. “i received a letter,” he says after a pause. “it told me to go there, that i should see whether in those conditions i would still be able to influence the atmosphere. i had nothing to do that day, so i went.”

“were you alone when you got there?” chanyeol asks. _snap_ goes his forefinger against his thumb, a habit that pops out whenever he feels anxious.

“i think i was,” sehun says. “but you know how huge the deserts are. there could have been anyone hiding in there, amongst the shrubbery or the rocks.”

“sehun,” junmyeon says, but before he can go any further, the air wizard holds up his hand.

“i know what you’re going to say,” sehun tells him. “you’re going to say that i was reckless and that i shouldn’t have gone, and even if i _had_ , i shouldn’t have practiced my magic there. i knew what i was doing, junmyeon. i may seem too young for this but i know my limitations. when i did the spell, i could feel the extent of it, i had it under control. but something happened, and i don’t know if you’ll believe me -- somehow, it felt as if i’d repeated it twice, thrice, four times. a loop. and the twister grew and grew, and i was at the heart of it.”

“you had cuts all over your torso,” junmyeon says. “how sure are you that you had it under control? a loop, sehun? maybe you forgot. maybe you were layering it,when you’re not --”

“i _wasn’t_ ,” sehun snaps. his fingers are still, slipping through the clouds. “i’m not an idiot, junmyeon. i’ve trained for the longest time, and i’m aware of the consequences of layering spells. do you think me a fool enough to do it? i only did that spell once. but something, i don’t know, it just -- it felt like time twisted, and i was going back to where i started, and the loop occurred.”

“that’s…” minseok trails off. “what could have caused that?”

“i don’t know,” sehun says, shaking his head. “but it wasn’t a deliberate move on my part.” he gives junmyeon a glare. “and since someone in this room can’t wrap his head around that concept, and is somehow convinced that i would endanger myself like that, i don’t think i need to say anything else. no one listens, anyway.”

he gets off of his chair, while junmyeon straightens in his. “meeting is _not_ adjourned,” the water wizard grits out.

“no one is bound to stay until it’s over,” sehun returns, and with that he’s whirling in the arms of a gust of air. a rectangle opens up in the wall and he flies out, leaving the room feeling stale and dry when it closes behind him.

junmyeon glowers at the spot that sehun had gone through.

“leave him,” kyungsoo says, bringing his hands up to massage his temples. “he has a point. sehun may be a brat, but when it comes to manipulating his element, he’s the best. he knows the nature of air, and he’s got the rules memorized. he won’t do a loop, especially when it’s unnecessary.”

“he still doesn’t know the basics of courtesy,” junmyeon mutters. the pond beneath his chair bubbles and froths for a good few seconds before he gets a handle on his emotions once again.

“how could it have happened, though?” minseok asks out loud. “if he’s not the one who did the loop, then who?”

“it doesn’t have to be a _who_ ,” chanyeol says, spreading out his arms. “it can be a _what_. whoever or whatever it is must have had the intention of harming sehun.” he frowns. “he _really_ shouldn’t be flying out on his own like this. i’ll try to talk to him and watch his back.”

“you do that,” minseok says, glancing at junmyeon. “i feel that you’re the only one at the moment with enough energy and patience to deal with him. he listens to you, at least.”

“he listens to kyungsoo, too,” chanyeol points out. “but, well, kyungsoo’s got enough on his plate.”

“for once,” kyungsoo says, his tone dry. “sehun...he doesn’t do things for the sake of just doing them. he just wants to practice, get to know his element more. and it’s not like he avoids following the rules -- he does what he’s told to do, and he’s here when you need him. you just can’t expect him to be some puppy waiting for your commands.”

“when i was 17, i wasn’t that flighty,” junmyeon says. “and i’m not saying he should be a brainwashed puppy, but he should stay in one place. it’s a headache keeping track of him.”

“we’ve all got our ways of dealing with things,” kyungsoo says. he thinks of sehun, of the way the younger boy’s eyes seem to sharpen in focus when he’s learning new runes or tracking the direction of the wind. he thinks of how the air wizard’s always strived to master as many spells as he can. sehun, after all, heads the element with the largest contingent in the academy. he’s also needed more often for various tasks, coasting from town to town on varying wind currents. it’s no wonder he’s always trying out something new.

“he’s only 17, junmyeon,” minseok says, voice soft. “i know you’re worried about him, i know you think he needs a little more discipline. but he’s doing the best he can considering how much responsibility there is heaped on his shoulders.”

“we have to listen to him,” chanyeol adds. “there is a reason why he was chosen by the air chair. you have to trust him.”

junmyeon opens his mouth. he closes it. kyungsoo watches the way ripples break through the surface of the pond that’s beneath the water chair.

“sehun doesn’t lie,” kyungsoo says. “you know he doesn’t. and he knows what he’s doing, so if he says that he didn’t loop the spell, then he means it. we have to investigate this.”

junmyeon massages his temples. “alright,” he says. “alright. we’ll look further into this matter. chanyeol, you’ll be the one to talk to sehun about this. kyungsoo, you can rest a while -- you need it, you’ve spent most of your energy in the last few days. minseok, i need you to help me with the investigation itself.”

kyungsoo wants to protest, to say that he doesn’t need a break, but the way he feels too tired to even hold himself up prevents him from doing so. he’ll just rest for a couple of days, and then he’ll try to ask junmyeon if he can help with the investigation as well. there is little else for him to do.

“meeting adjourned.”

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

kyungsoo spends three days recuperating in his greenhouse, though he isn’t idle for a single second. he takes out stacks of books from the academy’s library and leafs through pages and pages of spells, practicing with the runes until he’s mastered them and filed them away in a corner of his mind. the rehabilitation of _aeterna_ had reminded him that there was still so much he didn’t know; that there were certain kinds of magic he needed in order to accomplish his tasks better. so he probes for bedrock and plays with the types of soil. the number of plant species in his greenhouse increases, until the entire place is filled with hundreds of plants raising their faces to the sun. 

on the second day of his break he’s sitting in front of a boulder, focusing all of his will and intent into shaping a house out of it. creating one straight from the ground, he’s found out, takes a lot out of him. kyungsoo builds, creates, but it is easier to transform things into the forms you want them to take than to create something entirely new. and he needs to be more efficient, more careful about how he deals with the currency of his energy. it isn’t something that is easily recovered, after all. lost energy takes so long to regenerate, and kyungsoo knows that if something like what happened to _aeterna_ happened again, he won’t be able to respond at all. 

a crack races along the middle of the boulder and it falls apart into hundreds of tiny pieces. kyungsoo heaves out a sigh and puts them back together again, murmuring a quick spell for adhesion. as much as he wants to learn, to broaden his knowledge of spells, he knows it’s still difficult to do in his current condition. he can’t use the harder runes because they will take away what’s left of his energy, which is a waste of the time he’s been going through regeneration. 

he sleeps early that day, mind swirling with too many worries and concerns. he’s never been needed on this scale, never had to deal with problems huger than a hectare of corn stalks wilting in the heat. so his practices hadn’t been so frequent, and he’d often worked with the more intuitive side of his magic. it’s not that kyungsoo hates runes. it’s just that, unlike the other wizards, he doesn’t rely much on them. the archive of earth spells in the library is about three times smaller than the archive for fire spells. the earth itself isn’t something that you can grow intimate with through runes. it’s an element that relies more on how the wizard understand its intricacies and secrets.

he drifts off with the image of _aeterna_ collapsing pulsing at the forefront of his thoughts.

everything goes wrong on the third day.

he’s just risen for breakfast and is well on his way into a tome that contains some of the most complex spells he’s ever come across, his knuckles spotted with blue ink and his shirt stained with dirt, when the door to the greenhouse slams open. kyungsoo hasn’t even had enough time to react when someone is tugging the book out of his hands and pulling him up.

chanyeol is standing right in front of him, looking like he’s just run fifty miles to get to where he is. maybe he has. the fire wizard’s never been patient enough to just wait for his shuttle.

“i’m sorry,” he manages to say through his attempts to reclaim his scattered breaths. “i know it’s too soon and you haven’t gathered enough energy, but something’s happened. we need you at the inner council right now.”

something cold slithers down to kyungsoo’s gut. he takes in the way chanyeol’s bent over in exhaustion, at the urgency that must have caused his friend to waste no time at all in fetching him. “i’ll get my robes --”

“not important,” chanyeol gasps out. “let’s go.”

everything is a blur as chanyeol and he brisk-walk through the city streets. kyungsoo doesn’t even think of suggesting that they wait for a shuttle because the desperation that clings to chanyeol’s form is too overwhelming to let him think of anything else. 

when they arrive at the inner chamber, kyungsoo sees that all the other wizards are already seated at their chairs. but what strikes him is how each of them is wearing a grim expression: lips pursed tight, eyebrows knitted together, and eyes filled with a certain kind of hardness that he's not sure he's ever seen before. sehun is tossing a gale from one hand to another. junmyeon seems calm enough, but the water rushing down the coral of his chair suggests otherwise. minseok, meanwhile, has hailstones in his lap instead of the usual snowflakes. 

kyungsoo feels underdressed, but chanyeol's been the one to drag him here in a hurry so it isn't really his fault. he and chanyeol walk over to their chairs. the tension in this room is thick, heavy, weighing all of them down and crawling into crevices left unguarded. 

“kyungsoo,” junmyeon says the moment he’s taken his seat, “i’m sorry for cutting your break short. but something’s happened, and as much as we all want to help, you’re the only one capable of fixing this.”

“what is it?” kyungsoo whispers, though something inside him tells him he doesn’t really want to know. 

“the towns in the southern region,” minseok says, hands clenched, “have been destroyed. it’s even worse this time -- the area has been left with only a communal well and a greenhouse. no casualties, but everyone’s rattled and there are plenty of people injured. unlike _aeterna_ , the southern towns don’t have a disaster response in place. they don’t have tents or emergency resources. they only have the clothes on their backs.”

kyungsoo takes a deep breath. he knows how hard it must be for minseok right now, especially since the ice wizard’s been brought up in the south. kyungsoo’s heard that his family has moved to the city since minseok’s induction into the council, but that doesn’t ease any of the pain he might be feeling at the thought of his hometown being reduced to piles of debris.

“we need you there right now,” junmyeon says. “i’m aware you haven’t recovered most of your energy yet, but at the very least we need to have the rehabilitation process underway tonight. we’ve sent supplies and healing aids. i still have to arrange things, but sehun will accompany you. the shuttles have already been prepared; you’re leaving right away.”

“i don’t have anything,” kyungsoo says, trying his best to keep the panic from crowding out his thoughts. “i don’t have clothes, my books --”

“i’ll have them sent to you as soon as possible,” junmyeon says. “but you need to be there right now. at the very least, you have to prioritize the food sources and parts of the south that can be used as temporary settlement areas. i’ll set off in two days’ time. chanyeol, you’ll be in charge of the academy and the city until we come back. and minseok…” 

minseok’s jaw is set. “i’ll do what you asked me to do.”

junmyeon nods. “alright. sehun and kyungsoo, off you go.”

and before kyungsoo can even think, before he can even properly analyze the fact that _junmyeon has just given chanyeol total control of the city despite how many times he’s complained about the fire wizard’s volatility_ , before he can even wonder about what minseok had been asked to do -- before he can so much as be afraid of the task lying ahead of him, sehun is whisking him away to a shuttle.

it will take them three hours to reach the south, and it’s more than enough time for kyungsoo to gather all the shards of energy he can find. instead of sleeping, though, he stares out at the landscape that’s falling apart with every passing mile. how many more cities and towns will become broken shells of their former selves? how long will this go on, how long until what they will be dealing with are scores of casualties? how long until, instead of fixing, kyungsoo will be asked to make graves?

for a moment, the dirt outside rises to form a black-and-white image with blurred edges and indistinct features. there is a pounding in his head and it won’t stop.

kyungsoo stares at his hands and begins listing down the spells he needs most.

 

 

the last time kyungsoo had gone south was about six years ago, on a field trip that the academy organized for all of the elemental manipulators. _you have to learn about the geography of the entire realm_ , their professors had said. so they’d all trooped to the towns in shuttles that could hold around forty to fifty students each. they’d been a jumbled mess of youth, talking over each other and producing occasional bursts of spells. kyungsoo had huddled next to chanyeol and an air manipulator named amber. amber had come from the south, and through bangs that swept across half her face, she’d told the two of them about what to expect. 

“it’s a large place,” she’d said in a voice that almost didn’t carry over the racket brewing around them. “but the people are nice and kind, and whenever anyone needs anything, the entire town helps them out.”

she’d been right. from the moment that the students had arrived up to the last second before their departure, the townspeople of the south were nothing but kind and accommodating. they’d let the students descend upon heaps of straw and taught them how to weave, to slide the strips into the spaces and knot them in place. they’d given them minced meat pies and bowls of fresh cow’s milk, and when everyone had to leave, they’d put together little sacks of strawberries and homemade cookies and cheese and pats of butter. back at the city, kyungsoo had dug into his sack and tasted the warmth of home.

he remembers it now as the shuttle passes through the arch that marks the entrance to the first of at least twelve towns. he tries to brace himself for whatever it is he’ll see, but shock still makes its home in his veins when the shuttle rounds a curve and rolls down the dirt path that snakes through the town.

all the houses have become mounds of ruin, wooden floorboards and window frames mixed with shattered slabs of concrete. the place is streaked with layers of dust. he spots churned-up earth and furniture snapped into fractions, and making their way past the mounds are villagers trying to salvage what they can from the destruction. kyungsoo sees a little boy squat beside a rabbit plushie with its stuffing spilling out of a hole in its side. the little boy picks it up and brushes away the dirt, and then he’s cradling it to his chest while sobs wrack his small frame.

“stop,” kyungsoo shouts to the driver up front. he knows he’s supposed to head straight for the center of the town where the officials have gathered, but he doesn’t mind it now as he pushes open the door and runs toward the crying child. behind him, he hears a vague “ _kyungsoo, what are you doing?_ ” coming from sehun. 

somewhere beneath the rest of his thoughts, he feels the initial pricks of the earth’s consciousness. kyungsoo pushes them back, back, back; he’ll tend to everything else later. for now, he rests his hand on the little boy’s shoulder and asks him, “are you alright?”

the child looks up with tears leaving clean stripes down his dirt-stained cheeks. there is a small bruise forming on his jaw, the color of sunset bleeding into dusk, and he clutches the rabbit even tighter. pieces of fluff continue to escape through the tear.

“it’s broken,” he whispers, lower lip wobbling. 

“will you let me have it for a few minutes?” kyungsoo asks, trying to keep his tone as soothing as possible. “i’ll see what i can do.”

the little boy seems reluctant but he hands it over. kyungsoo lets the rabbit rest on his lap and he runs a thumb over the tear, closing his eyes as he holds the fibers and threads together. he elects not to say the runes out loud, that would scare the child; instead he pictures them floating in his mind. beneath his thumb, he feels the stuffing make its way back into the body of the rabbit, and then the tear is sewn up. 

he opens his eyes. the little boy is now looking at him with his mouth open, wonder sparkling within his eyes. kyungsoo returns the rabbit to him and stands up. “is that okay?”

the child nods, and he turns the rabbit over in his hands. “yes,” he says. “thank you.”

“you’re welcome,” kyungsoo says. he reaches down to ruffle the child’s hair for a few seconds. “take care.”

as he walks back to his shuttle, he wishes he can do something about the bruise on the child’s jaw. but that’s out of kyungsoo’s abilities, and he’d rather not tamper with something that isn’t an object.

once the shuttles have brought them to the town center, kyungsoo and sehun alight. sehun shoots him a contemplative look, but when kyungsoo asks him what’s wrong, the younger wizard just shakes his head. together they walk over to the circle that the officials gathered have formed.

and when they take their places in the circle, when the discussions have begun and every official has presented the plight of his town, kyungsoo fights back the sensations that the ground is sending up to him. his vision is washed over in shades of red, crumbling to fragments whenever he blinks. there is pain throughout the land. there is desperation, and sadness, and somewhere underneath those emotions he can feel that the earth is trying to tell him something -- something he’d missed.

the eighth official begins his spiel on the number of houses destroyed in his town, and that _something_ slips away from kyungsoo’s grasp once again.

 

 

night has tucked the towns in bed when kyungsoo startles awake in his sleeping bag. everyone is arranged like spokes on a wheel around a bonfire, but as far as he can tell, they all seem to be caught up in their dreams. then he turns his head to the left and catches sehun’s lanky silhouette as he untangles himself from his bag.

“what are you doing?” kyungsoo asks, keeping his voice down as much as he can.

sehun shakes his head. “i can’t sleep. i’m going for a walk.”

kyungsoo hesitates. he watches as the air wizard rises and picks a path through the other unconscious bodies. yet he knows that he’s not going to fall asleep anytime soon, either, and he can’t let sehun wander off on his own. he slips out of his bag and follows the younger boy. 

it’s hotter here in the south, the temperatures on a steady ascent during the day. the heat burrows into anything it comes across, though the people have learned to live with it and tried to counter the sluggishness that preys upon them on the hours when the sun is at its peak, and kyungsoo’s learned that it takes more out of him than it should. earlier, he’d been on the verge of fainting after he’d repaired the tenth house in a row. he’d drowned in exhaustion, pulled under by waves of overexertion, and sehun had only just managed to hold on to him when he’d pitched forward. the air wizard had told him to stop, then; kyungsoo was in no shape to refuse. 

now, it’s a little better after he’s eaten and rested. his energy level’s nowhere near its usual amount yet, but at least he’s recovered some of it. it helps that when the moon climbs up rungs of clouds, the temperature drops, and a chilly wind blows over the area. it’s almost soothing. 

“kyungsoo?” sehun stops and turns back to look at him. kyungsoo tilts his head.

“yeah?”

the younger boy bites his lip. “do you think...do you think that minseok and junmyeon know something but they aren’t telling us?”

“minseok and junmyeon know a lot of things that they aren’t telling us,” kyungsoo says with a chuckle. “remember that they’ve been at this far longer than we have. you’ll have to be more specific.”

sehun shrugs his shoulder. “i don’t know. it’s just that i feel from the way they’ve been talking that there’s something about these incidents that they’ve chosen not to share with us. like they have an idea who or what might be behind these damages, but they don’t want to tell the rest of us.”

“i’m sure that if they do know something, they’ll tell us soon enough,” kyungsoo says. “maybe all they have are just speculations at this point and they don’t want to reveal anything until they’re completely sure. i don’t think minseok and junmyeon will withhold information from us without any reason.”

sehun is quiet. he looks down at his feet, traces a circle on the sand. “sometimes i feel like they don’t really trust us yet. is it because we’re new? is it because i’m young? it makes me feel like they only ever need us to carry out the tasks they can’t handle themselves, but they don’t want us doing anything important.”

“this is important,” kyungsoo says. he reaches out and ruffles sehun’s hair. the air wizard shoots him a disgruntled look but doesn’t protest. “the fact that they sent us here to take charge of the rehabilitation process means that they trust us to be able to deal with destruction on such a large scale. junmyeon also left chanyeol in charge of the academy and the affairs in the capital city, and you know he always complains about how restless chanyeol is. still he thinks him more than capable enough to deal with things in his absence.”

sehun frowns. “he doesn’t trust me, though. what am i supposed to do here, anyway? it feels like he just carted me off to this place so he can get me out of the way.”

“that’s not true.” kyungsoo shakes his head. “that’s not true and you know it. junmyeon does trust you. sure, he gripes about how you’re an impertinent brat and disrespectful and flighty. but that’s only because he’s worried about you and that you might run into trouble while practicing a spell or going off to random places.”

sehun looks away. dipped in the moonlight, he’s a swathe of doubts crammed into a body that holds nothing other than bones. 

“you should trust them, too. even if minseok and junmyeon aren’t saying anything to us, even if there are some things that we’re not privy to, we should trust them. they’ll do what they think is right.”

“i hope so,” sehun murmurs. “and i hope they realize that we’re here to help if needed.”

he walks away. kyungsoo considers trailing him but he decides against it, instead settling on a flat boulder and keeping his eye trained on sehun’s retreating form.

he has his own doubts as well. they froth in the pauses between sentences, in the seconds that trickle past whenever minseok and junmyeon share another indecipherable glance; they rear their heads when he is deep within the safety of his greenhouse and coaxing a flower out of its bud.

there is no room for them, though. there never has been, and kyungsoo knows he has to do his best to fold them up and crumple them in the corners of his mind. let them rot until there is nothing left.

he has to trust them. he has to _believe_ that minseok and junmyeon are doing what is right.

 

 

the rehabilitation of the south takes even longer than _aeterna_ ’s. a lot of it has to do with the fact that kyungsoo is unable to keep repairing things throughout the day -- he simply doesn’t have enough energy. sehun tries to help by clearing areas and moving around objects with a couple of swift wind currents, but the burden of the repairs falls on kyungsoo alone, and it’s one that he finds hard to bear. he doesn’t have enough stamina built up. he’s not ready for this, for the toll it takes on his body and on his mind, and he’s been left grossly unprepared by all the years when he hasn’t been needed for tasks like this one.

junmyeon arrives on the fifth day, at least three days later than he said he would, and he tries to do what he can. he apologizes to kyungsoo as he digs deep into the ground for water and makes new wells. kyungsoo just waves him away and tries to focus on rebuilding a warehouse. 

when everything’s fixed and in place, the southern towns insist on throwing a celebration. they whip pies and root hash and fried fish out of nowhere. those who have managed to salvage their musical instruments or whittled new ones form a band and play old folk songs. a group of dancers sway to the music and mingle with the rest of the townspeople, pulling them closer to teach them a move.

kyungsoo finds himself on the outskirts of the celebration, far too tired to take part in the festivities but far too polite to decline the invitation. several times, an official or a villager comes up to him to thank him for his work. they give him gifts wrapped in leaves woven together, bound by a single strand of twine. already there is a pile growing at his feet. 

“exhausted?”

kyungsoo looks up to see junmyeon, a weary smile splayed over the water wizard’s lips. he’s always been pale but tonight he looks paler than usual, even in the light of the flames flickering in the nearby torches.

“yes,” kyungsoo says. “sehun’s not, though.”

they watch as the younger boy participates in another dance, his jaw stretched wide by laughter as he tries to copy the moves. here, in the thick of this celebration, he looks more his age. it’s easy to believe he’s 17 and not yet burdened by the responsibilities that are tied like weights to his position.

junmyeon sits down beside him. “when we get back to the city, you’re not going to be assigned anymore tasks. you need to rest as much as you can because we might require your help again.”

kyungsoo takes this in. “do you think it will happen again?”

“i think it’s best to take precautions, regardless,” junmyeon says. “if they’ve already done this twice, nothing will stop them from doing it a third time.”

“you think it’s a _them_?”

“certainly one person can’t plan this by himself. but who knows.”

kyungsoo thinks of his conversation with sehun several nights ago. he thinks of what the air wizard had said about minseok and junmyeon not telling them everything they know, of the fact that junmyeon might have an idea about who is behind everything but still hiding it from the rest of the council.

 _trust them_.

“i’ll practice some more then,” kyungsoo says, trying to rid himself of those thoughts. “there are more spells i need to learn, all while conserving my energy. i’m a lightweight at this kind of thing.”

“no, you’re just not used to this volume of work yet,” junmyeon says. “certainly you’re not a lightweight. if you were, you wouldn’t have even lasted long. you’d have to be sent home after maybe three days.”

“that’s only because sehun stops me from doing anything once i start tottering.”

“that’s just as well.”

“i really do hope no more cities or towns get destroyed, though,” kyungsoo murmurs. “ not because i don’t have the strength left to repair things. but because no one should suffer this way.”

“i’m wishing for the same,” junmyeon says. “there’s just been too much to deal with in the past few weeks. it will be a matter of time before we break down.” he sighs and stands up, and claps kyungsoo’s shoulder twice. “i’ll be going along now to meet with the officials. you should sleep.”

“in a while, i will.”

kyungsoo stays there for a few more minutes, watching sehun blend into the rest of the community. then with an inhale that reaches in deep, he gathers the presents that the people have given him, and he makes his way to his tent. 

he’s never believed in divine entities, but tonight he clips wings on his wishes and sends them to the heavens; he prays and prays that this will be the last time he’ll have to do something like this.

 

 

it happens a third time.

it happens a week after the rehabilitation of the south has been completed, in the hours left dead by night clinging to the skies before day splatters itself all over the clouds. it happens when kyungsoo is still half-awake and stumbling to the kitchen for a glass of water. he’s only just filled it a quarter full when the door’s knocked down and junmyeon’s rushing in, and the water wizard carries him away even though kyungsoo’s only wearing a set of flannel pajamas. he hears a string of _northwest_ and _the report came in immediately_ and _we can get there before the culprit escapes_. 

it’s with a jolt that he realizes he’s being stuffed into the sky train along with the rest of the wizards. minseok’s at least managed to pull on a shirt and pants. sehun’s dressed in shorts and a tank top. chanyeol’s the one worst off, the only article of clothing on his body being a pair of boxers.

“couldn’t you wait until i put my clothes on?” chanyeol grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest. he’s still wearing his fuzzy bedroom slippers.

junmyeon pays him no heed. “top speed,” he says to the conductor. “we need to be fast.”

“we’ll be there in ten minutes,” the conductor says.

“that’s better than i expected. thank you.”

“so,” chanyeol says once junmyeon is seated, “mind explaining to us why you knocked down our doors and pulled us out of our beds without giving us time to change?”

“i set up some scouts in the various outlying cities and towns a couple of weeks ago. i told them to report right away in the event that sudden damages occurred. fifteen minutes ago, i received a message from them telling me that a building had fallen.”

“what makes you think we’ll be able to catch the culprit in time, though?” kyungsoo asks. “he might well be gone by now.”

“judging from how it’s just one building at a time,” junmyeon says, “it will take him a while to go through everything. he chose to attack the city of pontus in the northwest.”

“the city by the sea,” sehun says. “the one with so many buildings and warehouses.”

“there are a lot of infrastructure, yes, since the city deals with a huge amount of shipments. that only means we have a better chance of catching the culprit, whoever he is, because it will simply take him too long. i doubt he’s counted on the fact that we would have set up scouts.”

“it’s a big place, though,” minseok points out. “and he won’t be easily found.”

junmyeon shakes his head. “no. which is why, when we get there, we’re splitting up and combing the city. the best sign would probably be some manifestation of his magical energy -- perhaps an aura or a cloud of smoke or some kind of light. sehun will be going overhead to get the best view of the area and send us messages whenever he thinks there’s something worth checking. i’m going north to the pier. chanyeol, you’ll go east; minseok, you’ll go south. kyungsoo, you’ll be searching the western areas -- that’s where the residences are.”

chanyeol looks scandalized. “i’m _half-naked_. i can’t go searching for anything like this.”

junmyeon unclasps the cloak he’d been wearing over his robes and passes them to chanyeol. “here, you can use this.”

“it’s too short.”

junmyeon glowers.

chanyeol gulps. “i mean, thank you.”

the rest of the ride passes in silence. once the train’s reached the platform of pontus’ station, the five of them alight. sehun leaps into the air and settles on a low-lying cloud, floating off on rays of sunshine. chanyeol conjures a ball of flame and heads toward the area where all the shops are concentrated. junmyeon starts walking north. minseok, after examining the immediate surroundings, goes south.

kyungsoo leans down and touches the ground. he knows it’s a slim chance, but the earth’s always told him everything, and he hopes it will help him now.

_bring me to where the person causing this destruction is._

at first nothing happens. and then the ground trembles, shakes, waves breaking up the surface. kyungsoo feels it move beneath his feet, and soon he’s whizzing past buildings and empty streets. he wonders where he’ll end up. he hopes he doesn’t get flattened against a tree trunk. 

he’s taken through alleys cut into pieces by trash cans and fallen bricks and smashed bottles of the strongest spirits. kyungsoo’s only ever been to this city once or twice, because a wizard of the earth isn’t needed in a place that depends on the sea for sustenance, and so most of the things he’s passing by are novelties to him. pontus, it seems, is a wellspring of pubs and houses that cradle porches with white trim. brine settles even in the most unassuming corners.

the ground steers him beyond the residences, beyond the ports, beyond even the edges of pontus. soon he’s rushing out of the steel gates that mark the side entrances to the city, his heart beating way too fast as he’s maneuvered through a thicket of trees.

there is no time to breathe, and kyungsoo wishes he’ll have just a second to catch a wisp of air -- but the ground forges on, and he doesn’t have enough time to register that he’s being flung into the direction of a person until both of them of them have toppled to the ground. 

without thinking, kyungsoo seizes a handful of the stranger’s robes. it doesn’t seem like he has the strength to do it, but somehow he manages to pull him up to his feet, and the both of them stand there with their gazes intersecting. 

it’s a man dressed in yards of navy silk without any identifiable seams or stitching, draped over his body and setting sail whenever the winds coast by. his hair’s rumpled from the fall, a leaf braided into the fringe that’s shading part of his face. his skin’s been kissed by the sun and his eyes remind kyungsoo of autumn, when all the other shades of red pierce the surface of the earth.

“who are you?” he demands, willing his nervousness to stay in the back of his head where it can’t convince him to run away from the man’s liquid-hot glare.

the man smirks. “do you think i’ll tell you that?”

kyungsoo freezes. there is something too familiar about the man’s voice -- about the undertones of it, the huskiness and the darkness interlaced with each other -- and now that he thinks about it, the features of the man himself drums against the recesses of his memory.

_“not so hungry, are you?”_

“have i…” kyungsoo swallows. his throat’s made of baked lands and the words are too dehydrated to make their way out. “have i met you before?”

the man tilts his head, and his tone is almost teasing when he says, “have you?”

_“don’t believe i’ve seen you here before.”_

“i -- aeterna,” kyungsoo says. “i saw you in aeterna. i sat beside you during dinner on the first day --”

_“where do you come from, then?”_

“you were wearing white,” kyungsoo whispers. 

he’s met by silence. it is a wall climbing up and up and up, and it rises between them with every single thing kyungsoo utters.

_“and what is someone from the capital doing here?”_

“let me go.”

kyungsoo shakes his head. “i can’t.”

_“do kyungsoo, if i’m not mistaken?”_

“you don’t know who i am and you’ve never met me before,” the man says. his words are slow. sluggish, almost. as if they are biding their time. “and you will release me because i have nothing to do with you.”

kyungsoo fights to keep his head clear. “you’re behind this, aren’t you? you’re the one causing all these damages.”

_“i don’t think it matters who i am and what i do.”_

his eyes flash like bits of live coal. “you’re mistaken. i don’t know who you are. i don’t know what you’re accusing me of doing.”

_“i call myself kai.”_

“kai!” kyungsoo blurts out. “your name is kai.”

kai must have been planning to keep his expression as neutral as possible, but once his name hovers in the space between them, he recoils about an inch away from kyungsoo. he recovers himself a second later, but kyungsoo’s already gotten the confirmation he needs.

“my name is not kai.”

kyungsoo purses his lips. “no, it’s not. it’s only what you call yourself.” he looks down and sees kai’s fists clenched at his sides, tendrils of oblivion curling around his knuckles and creating a trail outward. kai notices his gaze and his face darkens even more.

“let me go,” he says again, this time through gritted teeth.

he’s never seen magic like this before. he’s never come across any spell that makes its presence known through folds of black, and kyungsoo can feel his heart running a race across the landscape of his rib cage. “like i said, i can’t. you’ve caused too much trouble. even if you say it’s not your fault, you’re still a suspicious person casting a suspicious spell, judging from the… _things_ radiating from your hands. i don’t know what it is you’re doing, but i’m not letting you go.”

and with that said, he stomps hard on the ground. in seconds, vines begin to wrap around kai’s body, winding across his chest and tying him down to a mound of rocks and mud that have begun to encase his feet. 

“you don’t understand anything,” kai hisses, struggling within the grip of the vines.

“maybe not,” kyungsoo says, “but i understand enough that you have to stay in one place.”

“kyungsoo!”

the two of them look up at the same time as a cloud pivots downward and crashes through the canopy overhead. kyungsoo winces when he hears a chorus of groans coming from the trees. 

sehun spills out of the cloud and it shoots back up to the skies. he looks at kyungsoo, and then he looks at kai. “is this…?”

“i think he’s the one behind this,” kyungsoo says. kai rolls his eyes at the both of them.

“i’m going to ask you again nicely,” he says. “let me go, or i’ll be the one to go myself.”

kyungsoo sets his jaw. “no, i’m not letting you leave.”

sehun takes a step forward, worried. “we need the others here --”

kai shrugs. “i warned you.”

one minute the three of them are locked in place. the next minute, there is a blast of black smoke and kyungsoo’s hurled back and he chokes on the smell, the acidity that drips into his open mouth when he struggles to take a breath. he watches as the vines melt off of kai, falling down in clumps of black, and the mound of rock and mud crumbles. 

“you’re mistaken if you think you can stop me. you’re even more mistaken if you think you’re doing the right thing. you have no idea what’s happening to both our realms right now, and you would do well to leave me alone.”

kyungsoo places a hand on the ground. he tries to reach out, to trap kai again --

but there is another puff of smoke, and what is left of kai is condensed into marks branded into the nearby trees and stained patches of grass that take on the color of soot.

“sehun?” kyungsoo calls out, still trying to breathe in air that’s not been tainted by kai’s magic. he goes on all fours and begins to crawl in search of the younger wizard. “sehun, are you alright?”

he finds sehun slumped against a tree, unharmed but shaken, and fear is a wound that won’t be healed so easily. “i’m fine,” he says. “i’m fine.”

“come on,” kyungsoo says, keeping his voice as soft and gentle as possible even though his mind is stumbling -- even though he’s trying to understand the meaning of kai’s words, even though he’s scared of how kai had escaped without any effort, even though he feels so powerless. helpless. “come on, let’s go back to the city and find the others. i don’t think he’ll continue what he’s been doing. not when he knows that we know.”

sehun nods his head but his eyes bear the gaze of a drowning man. he doesn’t speak at all as he calls for a cloud and coaxes kyungsoo into it.

and kyungsoo’s always hated not being on solid ground, the feeling of weightlessness in air never failing to irritate him. still, for a few minutes at least, he’s glad to be rid of it. he’s glad to worry about the sensation of falling from the heavens and let it eclipse thoughts and fears too toxic for him to bear.

 

 

the five of them settle on a strip of sand running along the edges of the sea. kyungsoo watches the waves cut the horizon into quarters, spraying them with a thin layer of salt. chanyeol burrows deep into junmyeon’s cloak and tries to cover as much of his body as he can -- but the cloak’s missing several inches of cloth from mid-calf to ankle, since junmyeon’s a couple of heads or so shorter than chanyeol. 

silence insinuates itself into the spaces left untouched by water and air. it’s the first time that none of them are caught up in an argument, the first time that everyone is still and stiff. there is no attempt even to play around with small spells the way they always do when they feel agitated; there is only a numb feeling coating them from head to toe.

junmyeon rubs his face with his hands. all throughout kyungsoo’s explanation of what had happened, along with sehun’s terse _he knocked me off my feet_ , he’d looked less worried and more tired. it’s evident, now, how exhausted he is. his shoulders are dragged down by invisible weights and his eyes are almost dull, their usual shine scraped off by duties and responsibilities and complaints that filled his plate every single day. now he says in a voice that swims in the sea, “are you guys alright? do you have any wounds that need to be healed?”

kyungsoo shakes his head _no_. sehun seems lost in something else, his gaze trapped within a vision of a far-away thing.

“let me just confirm,” minseok says. he isn’t wearing an expression at all, almost as if he’s forgotten to bring along any emotions. “he was dressed in black robes, yes? dark hair, slightly tanned skin, eyes that seemed to pin you down?”

“yes,” kyungsoo says. “do you or junmyeon know him?”

junmyeon offers a tiny smile. it pulls at his lips and looks out of place. “no, we don’t know him. but we _have_ heard of him.”

sehun’s head snaps up so fast that kyungsoo almost reaches out to make sure his neck isn’t broken. “i _knew_ it. you were keeping something from us.”

chanyeol pokes his head out of the cloak and comes alive, his brows knitted together. “sehun,” he says in a tone that is soaked in a warning.

“i am _calm_ ,” sehun says. his fists are clenched, and against the backdrop of a rising sun, his silhouette is a curve of angry red. “i am calm, but i won’t stay this way if you don’t explain what is going on.”

minseok looks confused. “we weren’t keeping anything from you.”

“are you taking us for fools? you know who that man is --”

“sehun, stop.” junmyeon’s voice is level, but kyungsoo almost shivers from the cold that comes with it. “i only said that we have heard of him. that’s all.”

“but you didn’t say anything --”

“we weren’t keeping anything from you,” minseok repeats, his words firmer this time. stronger. he notices the exchange of glances between chanyeol and kyungsoo and adds, “we really weren’t.”

“in fact, we’d already mentioned it you before,” junmyeon says with a sigh. “during the meeting we had just before kyungsoo and i had set out for aeterna. remember what we said about there being lands beyond this realm’s borders?”

sehun shoots up to his feet. “you never said anything of that sort,” he says, and his voice rattles like it’s about to break out of the cage that is his throat. “you’ve never given us that information.”

chanyeol is on his feet as well. “sehun, you need to calm down.”

“yes, i did,” junmyeon says, and it’s surprising how he keeps his voice modulated despite the look on sehun’s face. “we had a conversation about it, which you didn’t hear because you were still unconscious from that looping twister i’d saved you from.”

sehun freezes. he glances at chanyeol as if to ask, _is that true?_

chanyeol just tilts his head.

kyungsoo winds through the days, unbuckling the memories out of the box he’s shoved them into, and it takes a while to sort through things he wants to remember forever and things he wants to forget. “obscurum,” he says, and the details bleed so fast into the present that there is a technicolor rainbow in his head. “you said that it had a council of wizards whose magic wasn’t ordinary at all. that there was somebody who manipulated a person’s will, and another who controlled time, and another…” he trails off at the encouraging looks on junmyeon’s and minseok’s faces. he thinks of kai, of how he’d made buildings crumple and vines melt. how he’d been there one second and gone the next. “...another who controls space.”

“why wasn’t i told this?” sehun asks, bewildered. “when i’d already recovered, why did no one tell me this?”

“sit down, sehun,” chanyeol says. “don’t run away now. you need to listen so you’ll know as well.”

after a moment’s hesitation, sehun settles back in his spot beside kyungsoo. 

“i’m sorry,” kyungsoo says. “until junmyeon reminded us about it, i’d brushed it off completely. that’s why i wasn’t able to tell you. i’d forgotten.”

sehun just leans forward and rests his forehead against his knees.

“perhaps the only things we weren’t able to tell you were the names of the council members,” junmyeon says. “but to be honest, we hadn’t known until a couple of weeks ago.”

“after we’d gotten news about the southern towns,” minseok adds, “junmyeon and i agreed that it was best to ask advice from the former council members. he’d talked to leeteuk before and though leeteuk was aware of the existence of obscurum, he didn’t have that much information about it. he’d never had any contact with them. but he did say that i should contact jaejoong -- the ice wizard before me -- because he’d apparently made it all the way to obscurum when he was carrying out a task.”

kyungsoo blinks. “what kind of task would have brought him there?”

“it wasn’t supposed to,” minseok says. “jaejoong had overshot the directions given to him and he’d continued riding and riding until he emerged into the other realm. he refused to tell me what it was like -- when i asked him to recall his experience, he said that i should never have to know unless it was a matter between life and death. i didn’t press him further.”

“did he tell you anything about the council members?” chanyeol asks. he wiggles his toes in the sand.

“he told me what little he knew,” minseok answers. “he told me their names and how their magic was manifested, what they could do with it. the youngest is named zitao and he can apparently manipulate time in every way possible. he can slow it down. he can speed it up.” he pauses, as if contemplating something. “he can rewind events and let them happen again. i think we know now who may have been behind the looping of sehun’s spell.”

sehun screws his eyes shut. “i will make him pay.”

“he’ll make you pay a thousand times more,” junmyeon says. “he can just rewind to the moment before that and start over again.”

“then i’ll have to kill him.”

kyungsoo whirls. “sehun, you know you can’t do that!”

“ _can’t_ ,” sehun says, “or _not allowed to_? yes, i know the price of taking a life. but you’ve seen what he did to me. do i wait for him to kill me first?”

“this is just mere speculation,” minseok warns. “we don’t have any evidence to prove anything.”

“fine,” sehun mutters. “but you cannot fault me for wanting to protect myself.”

minseok sighs. “maybe i shouldn’t have told you this…”

“please continue, minseok,” junmyeon says. “we need to know every single thing we can about these people.”

“alright,” minseok says. “the next one, the manipulator of will, is the head of the council. his name is luhan. he can move things around with his mind, which is the mild part. his true strength is that he is capable of altering a person’s thoughts. he can make them do what he wishes.”

kyungsoo lets that sink in. when it does, the thought drops like a boulder at the bottom of his stomach and he feels an inexplicable urge to run away. hearing about tao’s magic had been scary enough, but luhan made it seem like what tao could do was simply child’s play.

“and the last is the one who controls space.”

kyungsoo nods. “kai.”

minseok’s eyebrows are furrowed. “kai?”

“that’s his name, isn’t it? the one who controls space? he told me that he called himself kai.”

“that’s what he says,” minseok snorts. “but jaejoong told me that his name is jongin. and jongin’s magic is more frightening than luhan for one reason: his magic _destroys_. he bends and reshapes space. he tears through dimensions. luhan, at least, has a positive aspect to his magic. but jongin’s magic can only lead to ruins.”

kyungsoo shudders. his heart is a bird and it is flap flap flapping away; it doesn’t want to know about wizards who take the epidermis of the earth and crushes it to dust. it doesn’t want to hear that there is magic existing to control people’s minds and hearts. it doesn’t want to be here right now. it wants to be home, with the smell of woodsmoke twisting it up with nostalgia and flowers blooming in rows that cling to forever.

“he’ll be back,” junmyeon says with a certain finality. 

“how do we stop him?” kyungsoo whispers. “how do we stop them?”

kyungsoo will never forget this second. he will never forget how junmyeon’s gaze plants itself on the ground, how sehun digs his fingers into the sand with his lips pursed, how chanyeol’s face is solemn, how minseok takes a deep breath but he’s still losing air.

“minseok, did jaejoong say anything?”

minseok bites his lip. “he didn’t say anything about that.”

anxiety forces the words out of kyungsoo’s throat: “but we need to stop them!”

junmyeon reaches for kyungsoo’s hand. “kyungsoo, leeteuk and jaejoong said the same thing -- that there doesn’t seem to be any way to stop them. they operate differently. no one has ever gotten close enough to know what their weaknesses are.”

“so we’ll just let them destroy everything?”

once again the silence rises. it teeters between junmyeon and kyungsoo, and as it settles on its choice, kyungsoo knows junmyeon won’t speak. he doesn’t need to. the answer is right there in the silence itself, near enough for him to touch.


	3. Chapter 3

  
  
there are sentries posted at every town and city now. complacency is something that the council knows they can’t afford, so everyone’s on alert mode and ready to pounce. they know jongin won’t give up just like that. somehow he’ll find out how to get around their guards; he’ll be back, and trepidation claims a permanent spot in one of kyungsoo’s heart chambers.

the library’s been emptied of all the books pertaining to the manipulation of the earth. they’re everywhere in kyungsoo’s greenhouse, growing alongside trees and held down by the weight of soil. sometimes he props them against mossy boulders. sometimes he lets them lie flat on the ground and stains his presence onto the edges of the pages.

he doesn’t go anywhere except his house anymore, not even to the academy, unless there is a council meeting. before all this, kyungsoo had strung the threads of his destiny in classrooms and round the hands of students. he’d spent most of his time teaching the earth manipulators, trying to mold them as best he could.

now it seems his only task is to conserve his energy and learn more spells. junmyeon had been blunt about it. when they’d gotten back to the city after their trip to pontus, he’d taken kyungsoo aside and told him that he was excused from doing official tasks unless they were too important for him to miss. _your priority is to prepare your magic and your strength,_ he’d said. _we need you to be ready for when it happens again._

he hasn’t been outside since. kyungsoo’s entire essence is bottled up in this greenhouse, and though he tries to keep himself updated on the goings-on, it’s still hard. chanyeol had visited him on the first few days, but he’d accidentally summoned a bonfire and burned down a couple of square meters of plants. kyungsoo had shooed him out the doors and brought back the blooms from the ashes. the smell of smoke had lingered.

he knows minseok and junmyeon are gathering as much information as they can. chanyeol and sehun are the ones operating the academy, these days, the two of them being the heads of the largest groups of manipulators. they’ve been attending the ribbon-cutting ceremonies and conversing with factory workers; they patch up every little trouble spot. kyungsoo wants to help, but he knows junmyeon is right. it is better for him to stay out of the way and concentrate on mastering his element.

as he watches a lily wind its stem across his forearm, kyungsoo wonders if he has it in himself to accomplish what he’s supposed to do. he flashes back to that day sometimes -- at night, cocooned in the warmth of the shack, the image of jongin disappearing before his eyes rattles him. he dreams of standing in the middle of devastation, unable to do anything as jongin refuses to let anything or anyone survive. he dreams of black tar coating the realm, melting every living being, and he is too late to stop it.

in retrospect, jongin takes longer than kyungsoo thought he would to destroy the next city.

he’s only just begun his trek back to his greenhouse after returning several stacks of books to the academy’s library. the sun’s not so cruel today, and the clouds have come along to play with it, so kyungsoo’s in a good mood. he’s humming a vague melody somewhere down the path that winds between the earth and ice buildings, a pleasant feeling rising in his chest, when he hears a loud _whoosh_ ing sound.

he doesn’t even have time to duck when sehun’s twister knocks right into him, and for a good few seconds kyungsoo’s caught in the eye of it. in the distance, he hears a scream. he’s not sure if it’s coming from his or someone else’s lips.

sehun stops the twister then and kyungsoo hits the ground with a hard _thud_. if the twister had been any bigger, he’d be all broken bones and joints by now. as it is, his backside feels a little sore, but at least he hasn’t hit his head.

“sorry,” sehun says in a sheepish tone. “forgot to give you a heads-up.”

“no one ever gives me a heads-up,” kyungsoo says, rubbing his back. “where are you hurrying off to, anyway?”

“to you,” is sehun’s blunt answer. kyungsoo freezes. this sounds like an opening to the nightmare that’s slept with him in his shack.

he swallows. “is it…?”

sehun nods. “one of the smaller cities to the east: sola.”

kyungsoo stares. “sola? isn’t that…”

“chanyeol’s hometown,” sehun says, his voice quieter this time. “yes, it is. junmyeon hasn’t told him yet. they’re all in the chamber right now. you know the drill.”

“okay,” kyungsoo says. images of charred landscapes and gigantic phoenixes fill his thoughts. he wonders how they can break the news to chanyeol without him erupting. “okay, i’ll see you there.”

when he enters the chamber from the tunnel, he finds junmyeon and minseok leaning over a map. chanyeol is seated in his chair, looking more like a lost boy than usual. sehun arrives just a second longer, air rushing in to embrace the room.

chanyeol sits up straight in his chair once he sees kyungsoo. “you’re here,” he says, surprise evident in his voice. “was another city attacked?”

kyungsoo sees how junmyeon’s and minseok’s bodies go rigid even as they look up with smiles taking tentative steps across their faces. sehun walks over to his own chair, looking like he’s pretending that there is nothing going on.

“i…” kyungsoo glances at junmyeon and minseok. “yes, apparently he’s struck again.”

“so why didn’t you just go straight there?” chanyeol asks, his expression a mixture of alarmed and confused. “they need your help! which city is it?”

kyungsoo looks down at the ground.

“am i not being told anything?”

junmyeon sighs. minseok seems like he’s bracing himself. they all are.

“i didn’t ask kyungsoo to go there immediately because when the report arrived, the damage was already done,” junmyeon says. “no one has been harmed. they have a few fields and wells to sustain them, and i’ve already sent aid specialists and supplies.”

“where is it this time?”

the atmosphere is oppressive, then. it suffocates, wraps twice and thrice around their necks, hanging them all from the ceiling. kyungsoo tries not to choke.

“sola,” minseok blurts out.

they wait.

in the past, when chanyeol had been agitated, he’d been an uncontrollable force. they had spent only two and a half summers in the academy when chanyeol had set another boy’s bed on fire for taking away his ferret. five summers later, he and kyungsoo didn’t talk for three months because chanyeol had burnt down all the plants in the courtyard when he’d thrown a bit of a tantrum because another fire manipulator had taken credit for his work. it had taken kyungsoo a while to relieve the ground of its pain and coax the plants back into bloom.

now they run through escape routes and scenarios, not sure what chanyeol’s temper will bring them this time. so far they’ve downplayed the destructive nature of his magic, but within these four walls, the threat is real and perched above their heads.

minutes pass. nothing happens.

a single cough might knock the chamber down. leave it a smoking pile of bricks, the only witness to five lives ending before they’ve run through their future paths.

still nothing happens, and when kyungsoo dares to look at chanyeol, he sees his friend’s clenched fists. his face is empty, wiped clean; his eyes are cold.

“junmyeon,” chanyeol says, and his voice may as well have come from somewhere beneath the folds of the earth.

junmyeon’s tone is placating. “yes?”

“i’m accompanying kyungsoo,” chanyeol says, and his eyes flash up to meet the water wizard’s gaze, “and we are leaving right now.”

arguments must be abandoned here. they must rot in the grout keeping the tiles together; they must bury themselves in the wallpaper and let go of their voices.

“yes,” junmyeon says. “yes, of course. you may leave.”

as they head out of the chamber and straight to their shuttles, kyungsoo tells himself to relax. he tells himself that chanyeol is calm.

but he knows very well that it’s only a matter of time before a ball of heat collapsing in on itself will compress, and then it will shred the surroundings into jigsaw pieces of their former selves. he knows he can do nothing about it.

earth catches easily, after all.

 

 

 

 

sola is a wasteland crackling with despair when kyungsoo and chanyeol arrive. they at least have some tents, and the resources from the capital city have already been distributed to the people. there are aid specialists scurrying back and forth, tending to the wounded and making sure that everyone’s eaten lunch, and it doesn’t seem there isn’t enough left of anything to salvage.

kyungsoo almost trips when he’s hit by wave after wave of everything that’s been ruined, but he’s used to this now. he’s used to how the feeling shovels the blood out of his veins and makes its home in a thicket of platelets; used to how it drums its persistence against his temples; used to how it pushes a scream through the spaces between his vocal cords. it only takes him a second to block all the noise out, find the equilibrium point and clear his mind. so he’s fine, though bile splashes twice in the pit of his stomach at the thought of all the work he has to do.

he glances over at chanyeol. the fire wizard is quiet, still, gaze pinned on points on the horizon that might have once been places he’d painted with the clarity of childhood memories. his mouth’s a running stitch of pain, and there is something harsh about the way he’s standing, like a pencil tip dragged across cardboard -- the lines too angry, the structure too sharp.

a little over a decade of friendship, and kyungsoo does not know what words to speak. he can’t find them anywhere. they’ve fallen into the cracks forming in the space between the two of them, and the chasm is too deep for him to try to reach in and retrieve them.

“you can go ahead and...talk to the officials,” kyungsoo says, willing his voice to stay as steady as possible. “i’ll start working, get a few important things fixed.”

he doesn’t even know if chanyeol’s listening to him. kyungsoo waits a second, and then he turns and takes a step.

“wait,” chanyeol calls. “i’ll come with you.”

kyungsoo looks back and blinks at him. “what? why?”

“i’ll come with you,” chanyeol repeats. “i don’t want to talk to the officials right now.”

“someone needs to talk to them,” kyungsoo says, feeling like he has to be the responsible one between the two of them. the stable one, the patient one, because chanyeol is on the brink of imploding. he always is.

chanyeol shakes his head. “i don’t think i can do it right now,” he says. “i want to come with you. maybe i can help you out with things.”

kyungsoo doubts it, but he doesn’t think it’s wise to turn down someone who’s just looking for a way up. he nods his head and turns on his heel, ears pricked for the telltale crunch of footsteps following him.

they come to a stop in front of a pile of massive stone bricks and wooden planks, the remains of what must have once been some sort of storehouse. he bends down and takes a bit of the earth, lets it crumble into his palms as he reaches out and tries to form a solid picture in his head of what this place used to look like.

“this was a daycare center.”

chanyeol’s voice pierces his thoughts and kyungsoo’s head almost snaps off his neck in his haste to look back at his companion.

“what?”

chanyeol’s crouched down beside him, now, and he’s running a hand over the bricks. “a daycare center,” he says. “i was three when my mother first brought me here, so i don’t remember much. there was always a lady baking cookies, lots of kids, and handcrafted toys that we would splatter paint on before playing with them. the lady’s husband was a stonemason, i think, and that’s why their house was built like this. sturdy.” he manages a small smile. “i’ve always thought it was one of the safest places in this world.”

there’s a lump rising in kyungsoo’s throat, and he almost chokes as he tries to swallow it down. “oh.”

he can feel chanyeol’s eyes on him as he tries to focus, tries to picture how this house used to look like. tries to imagine how it must have felt warm and strong at the same time.

after all the time he’s spent recuperating, kyungsoo’s a little more put together now. the pieces are gathered in just one place -- his mind’s sharp, clear, and he can feel the energy trickling into his veins as his lips form the beginning of a spell.

he doesn’t know how long it takes to rebuild the house, but he knows it takes long enough for chanyeol’s hands to rest on his shoulders and hold him steady. he’s lost in the haze of it, in the runes pushing away the other molecules and taking hold of his attention, and brick by brick the daycare center comes to life.

“good as new,” chanyeol murmurs when it’s done. kyungsoo sways a bit, but he can deal with the loss of energy better now.

“good as new,” he echoes. the silence plays for a beat, and then he’s turning and smiling at chanyeol, and the fire wizard’s lips are alight with happiness, too, and kyungsoo says, “don’t tell junmyeon that we didn’t talk to the officials right away.”

chanyeol shakes his head. “i won’t.”

“then let’s go restore more buildings.”

 

 

 

 

chanyeol returns to the capital once sola is fixed, but kyungsoo receives a letter from junmyeon telling him to stay put until sehun’s arrived. the air wizard comes swirling in the midst of a gale and several packages maybe three days after kyungsoo’s restored the last ruined house.

“we’re not going back to the capital,” sehun says once he touches down and the packages have settled in neat stacks. “junmyeon wants us to head northeast and settle in the cluster of towns there.”

kyungsoo’s throat feels dry. “you mean menoa,” he says. “menoa, where i came from.”

sehun tilts his head. “he thinks that the next attack will be there. he says it’s better if we get settled, so that when it does happen, we might be able to stop it.”

“how sure is he?” kyungsoo asks, blinking.

“most of the other places have already been affected,” sehun says. “we’re taking a bit of a gamble between northeast and southwest, but the towns in the southwest have already been secured. minseok’s there, and that’s also where jaejoong is. only junmyeon and chanyeol are at the capital but between the two of them, they can handle anything that might happen.”

“so we’re really heading northeast?”

sehun nods.

kyungsoo sighs and pushes away memories of acres of wheat glowing golden and the earth rumbling beneath his feet. “okay, just let me pack my things.”

he and sehun set out within a gale big enough to accommodate the two of them, and when kyungsoo ventures to ask why they aren’t using a shuttle, sehun tells him that junmyeon’s wary about how shuttles are easy to intercept. “we’re not exactly inconspicuous, traveling like this,” sehun says, “but at least it’s quicker and no one’s going to dare block our way.”

“where are we going to stay when we get there?”

sehun looks as if he can’t even believe that kyungsoo is asking him this question.

“but i haven’t told anyone that we’re coming…” kyungsoo trails off, thinking of how frantic his family can be whenever someone stays over without any notice beforehand.

“junmyeon wrote them a letter,” sehun says. “they’ll have everything ready by the time we arrive, don’t worry. you haven’t seen your family in a while, have you?”

kyungsoo shakes his head. “there was just no time to visit them.” he remembers the past few days, how his heart had dropped anchor in his stomach when he and chanyeol had spotted chanyeol’s family huddled beside the rubble of their home, chanyeol rushing forward to the warmth of his mother’s arms.

“even if our bet is wrong,” sehun says, his voice a shade softer, “at least you’ll be able to pay them a visit.”

kyungsoo doesn’t quite know what to say in return.

they land on the outskirts of menoa at dusk, the stars just beginning to peek out of bedrolls of clouds. though there is as much common magic in menoa as there is in the rest of the realm, the place has had little history of producing wizards. it isn’t precisely that the people might crowd them or that they won’t understand. but everyone’s virtues are rooted deep into the ground, and there is no sense in inducing some sort of fanfare. besides, the two of them don’t want to attract more attention than necessary.

he and sehun are torn about moving their packages with their magic, but a brief flash of memory has kyungsoo moving to the hut where a man used to rent out wooden carts. when he gets there, he finds that the man has been replaced by a boy who looks like he’s only just stepping into his teenage years, his body too gangly and his voice sounding like it’s been smashed on concrete more times than he can count. his lips are zipped when kyungsoo asks for his name; still, he’s polite if a little unsure in his movements, and he loans them a couple of carts for a bar of bronze.

menoa feels familiar yet different at the same time. as the houses take shape underneath the moonlight, kyungsoo finds himself seeking out the changes, trying to map out the years he was gone on the color of the bricks that the people used, and the flowers that grew by the wooden fences. sehun is quiet as he pulls his cart a few steps behind kyungsoo.

he’s surprised when he manages to remember the paths leading home. he and sehun encounter a few townspeople along the way, but kyungsoo hasn’t been here for more than fourteen summers, and they don’t connect this man dressed in city finery to the boy who used to spend hours by the town’s pond, dark brown breeches soaked and sandals always wet. he nods his head at them, but he doesn’t bother to introduce himself. curious as they might be, they only give him and sehun sparse wishes for a good evensong’s rest.

when the two of them finally reach the cottage where kyungsoo had spent most of his younger years helping his mother weave straw and hemp, kyungsoo glances back at sehun. the younger boy tilts his head, as if to say, _go on._

light trickles through the curtained windows. kyungsoo knows they’re all awake -- it’s not even time yet for dinner, for his grandmother’s familiar tomato soup and his mother’s fresh-baked bread, for the gravel of his father’s voice telling the kids to set up the dinner table. he wonders if they’d changed the crude wooden dining table, bought something new and more stable with the money he’s sent them every month that he hasn’t come and visited them like he’d promised.

he steps forward and knocks on the door.

it takes a few seconds before he hears footsteps coming their way, before someone yanks the curtain open and an eye peers through the sliver of space, before a gasp slips through the crack in the door when it’s on its way to swinging open. and then his mother’s face swims into view, with its lines and the crinkles in the corner of her eyes -- and then his father, with his gray-streaked hair -- and his grandmother with the warmest smile on her face -- and more of them, his entire family, standing shoulder to shoulder in the living room. their mouths are open, and kyungsoo feels sehun shift closer toward him. but kyungsoo’s eyes are on his grandmother, and her voice is lilting, reassuring as she says, “i told you he’ll come back home.”

then the tears slip down his mother’s cheeks, and she gathers him in her arms.

kyungsoo closes his eyes. standing on this doorstep, in the security of his mother’s embrace, he lets himself breathe. he lets himself forget everything that’s been chasing him all this while, all the problems that he’s had to deal with. he lets himself just _be_.

he is finally home.

 

 

 

 

three days after he and sehun have settled into the rhythm of the do household, their bet pays off.

dawn has yet to chase away the purple of the skies when kyungsoo is awoken from his sleep. at first he sits there on top of his mattress, the sheets pooling all around his legs, trying to catch the tail end of the dream that’s shocked him into alertness. then he realizes that the cause isn’t a dream -- it’s a thought, pulsating from the ground and tapping a mind-numbing beat at the forefront of his mind. within seconds he’s scrambling for sehun, who is a piecemeal architecture of limbs in the mattress beside his, and shakes him awake.

“eastern side,” kyungsoo hisses as sehun blinks at him with fog in his eyes and lethargy in every nerve of his body. “i can feel it -- he’s destroying something, sehun, we need to go.”

“how do you know?” sehun asks, wincing as they do the best they can to stumble through the darkness occupying most of the cottage.

“doesn’t the wind tell you things?” kyungsoo returns, pushing open the door a crack and slipping through. sehun follows behind him, and it’s a bit of a tighter fit because of his stronger build.

“well, yes,” sehun says, tongue peeking out to lick his lips.

“that’s what the earth does, too.”

they travel fast on a breeze that sehun snaps into life with his fingers and some scattered runes. kyungsoo’s heart seems like it wants to crawl out of his rib cage. he thinks of jongin’s abilities, of how space warps at his touch and how it is so easy for him to escape, and he wonders if he and sehun are enough to subdue him. kyungsoo doesn’t think they are, but they have to try. at the very least they need to stop him from going further.

jongin is just in the middle of collapsing a warehouse, one hand controlling the stream of destruction while the other zips up the contents in pockets of darkness and moves them a few feet away. clouds of black smoke wreath his form. sehun wrinkles his nose, clearly displeased by how the airspace is being tainted; he and kyungsoo land a bit harder than usual.

it feels unfair, taking jongin down while he’s distracted, but kyungsoo knows they’ve got no other choice. with a decisive stomp, there is a loud crack resounding in the air. within seconds, jongin’s swallowed up inside a tree trunk, hands held back by vines. the smoke is blown away by a couple of gusts from sehun. only jongin’s face is visible, his eyes widening in shock before he seems to recover himself and rearranges his expression into one of practiced disinterest.

“so, jongin,” kyungsoo says, relishing the millisecond spark of alarm in jongin’s irises, “we meet again.”

“kyungsoo,” jongin drawls. “thought you’d be tired of my face by now. seems like you missed me so much that you decided to look for me yourself.”

kyungsoo contemplates letting a boulder smash jongin’s face but he settles instead for a glare. jongin can probably escape, melt away into the air, before the boulder comes within an inch of him. “funny. i’d very much like to stop seeing your face, actually, but you keep coming to our realm. are you trying to get my attention? if so, you certainly have it.”

“i’m honored,” jongin says, tilting his head in what he probably means to be a mocking bow. “so honored, that it almost makes me want to stay and see what you have in store for me.” he smirks. “not enough, though. let me go.”

“i don’t understand why you’re doing this,” kyungsoo says. “i don’t understand your magic, and i don’t understand _you_. but you need to be stopped. you cannot keep on destroying the cities in this realm. _i won’t let you_.”

jongin’s smirk is still in place. “let me go,” he repeats.

“we’re not stupid enough to try to hold you down,” sehun interjects. “by now, we’ve seen what you can do. but if you’re not going to explain to us why you keep on doing this -- and i doubt it would be an explanation that would suit our interests in keeping the realm safe -- then you have to stop. the greatest mercy we can give you today is to not touch you.”

jongin raises an eyebrow. “so you’d like to touch me? fancy that.”

kyungsoo can feel the anger bubbling in the pit of his stomach. jongin’s trapped, stuck in a _tree trunk_ , and he still has the gall to give them impertinent answers. as if this entire thing is a joke. as if the destruction of the cities don’t mean displaced lives -- as if they don’t drain the realm of its resources, plant paranoia in the hearts of the people, and endanger everyone.

he steps closer, until he and jongin are just breaths apart. he can see himself reflected in jongin’s eyes. he can see the fury he radiates, how he’s almost shaking with it, how jongin recognizes it and winces but doesn’t balk. somewhere behind him he hears sehun call his name in a tone of warning.

“i could kill you right now,” he hisses through gritted teeth. “i could kill you right now, and you would be nothing more than the dust that feeds the earth.”

jongin holds his gaze. his jaw is set, and his voice is level when he says, “you could. but you won’t.”

“what do you know about me? what do you know about what i will and will not do? you know nothing.” they’re so close now. kyungsoo leans in until his lips are almost brushing jongin’s ear. “you will leave. you will leave, and this will be the last time that you will bring harm to this realm.”

“i can’t promise you that.” jongin’s voice is soft, almost sad.

kyungsoo pulls back to look at him. the rest of jongin’s face is blank, but his eyes are mournful, and it reminds kyungsoo of what he’d said back in pontus: _you don’t understand anything_.

moments later, when he and sehun are resting against the debris of the warehouse, the charred hole a few feet away the only evidence of jongin ever being there, sehun asks him, “what did you tell him?”

kyungsoo blinks. “that i could kill him right now if i wanted to.”

sehun is silent for a few seconds. “i was scared when you started moving closer to him. i’ve never seen you this angry before; i wasn’t sure what you would do.”

kyungsoo sighs. “i told him that this would be the last time he brings harm to the realm. i don’t know if it truly is the last time, but i hope he listens and stays away.”

“i hope so, too.” sehun hesitates. “kyungsoo?”

“yes?”

“please...please don’t ever do that again,” sehun says. “please don’t be so mad that you’re ready to kill anyone.”

“i couldn’t,” kyungsoo says. “i don’t think i will ever be capable of doing that, no matter how angry i was. the brat was right when he said that i _could_ kill him -- but i won’t.”

sehun sits up. “let’s go back.”

“we need to fix this first.”

as kyungsoo reassembles the warehouse and sehun moves its contents back in, he thinks of jongin. he thinks of the anger coursing through his veins a while ago, the certainty that he could crush jongin, leave him to rot deep in the womb of the earth. but jongin was right -- it had been nothing but a fleeting thought. a desire that he could not put into action. kyungsoo’s goal is to stitch back the earth, smooth over the wounds, help rebuild lives. unlike jongin, he doesn’t have it in him to destroy. to use his magic to cut the thread of a person’s life.

he prays jongin never comes back.

 

 

 

 


	4. dark

ii. dark

> _old wives say that a land split in half is a land about to die. when two fractions of a whole are divided, kept apart, they can only last for so long without the other. sooner or later, each fraction crumbles into itself and falls asleep yearning for what will make it whole again._

three-quarters of a summer has passed, and the realm bears almost no memory of a man wrapped in darkness. the council does not receive any more news of cities and towns reduced to rubble in a little over half a night. for the first few weeks of jongin’s silence, the five wizards had been tense, strung through a string of worries and anxieties. now, with winter treading closer to the realm, they push the thought of jongin and his magic to the backs of their minds.

kyungsoo doesn’t quite believe that a simple threat is enough to keep the dark wizard away, but he busies himself in the greenhouse and in the towns that need protection from the cold. he casts spells upon patches of land, so that the people may be able to harvest whatever extra produce is needed should the stores prove to not be enough. chanyeol is sent to every home in order to ensure that hearths will blaze warm and bright despite the cold. junmyeon and minseok ensure that the water wells don’t freeze over, and sehun travels to the boundaries every other day to taste the air, listen to it tell the tale of the coming cold.

winter in the realm isn’t so bad, not when minseok is around. in the months preceding the onset of the chill, the ice wizard travels from town to town, shrouding them in layers of spells so that the temperature does not rise to something more than the people can bear. jongin had stood in the way of those initial preparations, but with him retreating to his own place, minseok had been able to carry out his task. kyungsoo had accompanied him, checking on the status of the towns affected by jongin’s magic and making sure no buildings held too many cracks where the ice and snow could seep through.

all of them are so absorbed in their individual tasks and the upkeep of the capital, that at first they don’t notice it. they brush it off, thinking that it happens because there is more work this year than usual, so of course they have to reach deeper into themselves and use up more energy. nothing new. energy always regenerates; magic never runs out.

but this winter, it does.

the common folk find out quicker than the wizards and manipulators do. throughout the land, magic is buried deep in the soil and the roots of plants, mixed in with the water everyone drinks and the air everyone breathes, rising and falling along with the temperature and dancing with the flames. even those so accustomed to manual labor have a few basic spells at their disposal. bits of runes that work, with that little bit of energy caught from the surroundings and flowing in the people's blood. the common folk don't rely on magic as much, but they do use odds and ends of spells for a couple of things, such as the tying of shoelaces and ensuring the soundness of rock being squared off and the washing of thick linen. 

so when a hardened woodcutter dips into the reservoir of magic along with a handful of runes that his father had passed down to him, so that he may cast a spell to sharpen the blade of his axe and split the wood cleanly, he feels no buzz. for a moment, he is thrown off, unsure why the process -- done so many times before, by him and his father and his grandfather and so on -- feels off. he murmurs the spell again then checks his axe. the blade remains blunt, and when he swings down to test it on a bit of wood, it doesn't make a dent. he walks over to the house of his neighbor, a washing woman who employs runes to help dry her linen faster, and he tells her what happened. she casts the spell on the linen, the way she has done so for several years now, and the linen stays wet. she casts it again and again; water continues to drip from the cotton.

kyungsoo is in sola with minseok when the news breaks out. they are both in the process of layering spells around the town, kyungsoo going about to check for disturbed ground and damages in the buildings, minseok weaving runes all about the perimeter so that the temperature does not drop too much. this is the last town; once they are done, they can both head back to the capital and make preparations for the winter festival to be held in three weeks' time.

at first they don't believe what the town officials tell them. they cast their customary spells, showing the townspeople that they are still able to use magic. but as kyungsoo repairs another crack, he feels fatigue crawl into his veins in a way that's only happened twice before, when jongin had destroyed cities with just days in between, leaving him without time enough to rest to recover his energy. he sits back on his heels and exchanges glances with minseok. the ice wizard is standing only a few feet away from him, his skin pale and tinged with blue despite the fur-lined cloak he's wearing, and he looks at kyungsoo with a flash of understanding in his eyes.

"we'll bring this up with junmyeon when we return to the capital," minseok says to the official once everything is in place. he and kyungsoo have painted smiles on their faces, determined not to give away any of the exhaustion they're feeling. "until then, the people will have to do things manually for a while."

before the two of them leave sola, a scout is sent ahead bearing the piece of news and a request to hold a council meeting.

they are the last to arrive at the chamber of the inner council, each one tumbling out of his respective pathway. the five chairs are static, dead to the touch of the rightful occupants, and there is a frown on chanyeol's face as he runs his fingers over the top of his chair's backrest. sehun is leaning against the wall, staring at nothing. junmyeon is studying a map of the realm.

"we don't know what's going on," minseok says before junmyeon can crack his mouth open. "but you must have felt it, too: the energy is being drained from the land. it's not regenerating like it's supposed to. this is the most exhausted i've ever felt, and you know how i can usually bear fatigue best, because i've had time enough to gather reserves of energy before i go about to cast spells. junmyeon, the land is running out of magic."

"do you think this is jongin's doing?" kyungsoo asks. "he must have done something while he was in the realm, while he was destroying cities and towns -- perhaps a curse --"

"i know jongin seems powerful, kyungsoo," junmyeon says, "but think for a second. if he drains the land of energy, how will he be able to use magic himself? and i doubt he has the ability to do that."

"he can destroy things, certainly he can do this," kyungsoo argues. "have you seen the pockets of darkness he creates? perhaps that's where he stored the magic."

"interesting idea, but you have to remember that jongin hasn't touched the capital as well as plenty of other cities and towns," junmyeon says. "and if truly he'd drained the realm of energy, then you would have felt it right away. it's been seven months since his attack on menoa. we've monitored everything. surely, if he were behind all this, we would have seen some sign. as you've said, his magic is given away by black smoke and darkness. that is too obvious an aura for any of our scouts to miss."

"lee jinki flew down to meet me a couple of days ago," sehun adds in a contemplative tone. "i was surprised to see him. he told me that there was something wrong, that there is no energy to be had from the surroundings. he said that he'd only started feeling it three days ago, and he's fairly certain because he always makes sure there is enough energy around him in case he runs out. so it's a sudden thing, but he's not sure what it means and why it's happening."

"we'll have to send out a notice," junmyeon murmurs. "the manipulators must study just the runes from now on. wizards can use magic only for the gravest circumstances. as long as there is no excess energy to recover, we must choose wisely the spells we cast."

there is a sudden chill sweeping into the room and kyungsoo shivers. he sees minseok react, about to mutter the runes to a spell, but junmyeon shoots him a look. the ice wizard lowers his hand, knowing that now inconveniences such as this must be overlooked. chanyeol clenches his hands so as to stop them from forming his customary tongues of flame. sehun closes his eyes and wraps his arms around himself.

kyungsoo looks out the window. outside, drifting against the glass pane, are flecks of the first snowfall in the realm.

 

 

less than a week after the notices have been sent out, telling everyone that the use of magic must be decreased from now on, a crow perches on junmyeon's shoulder in the middle of breaking fast with the other members of the inner council. kyungsoo watches as junmyeon attempts to shoo the bird away, but all it does is hop off junmyeon's shoulder and onto the water wizard's plate of sausages.

then the crow opens its beak, but instead of a caw, a human voice emerges. "good morning, wizards of the light realm."

chanyeol's mouth is open in shock. beside him, sehun looks disturbed, and minseok is doing a poorer job than usual at hiding the play of emotions across his face. kyungsoo feels sick and pushes away his own plate. junmyeon is the only one who manages to maintain some semblance of calm, though his voice quivers a bit as he says, "good morning, erm, mr. crow. what may i do for you?"

the bird scratches at the sausages. kyungsoo swears there's a layer of green rising beneath junmyeon's skin. "no need to be so formal. you can call me luhan."

a ripple of recognition runs through the room, and the crow seems to feel it as well because it chuckles. "i see you know who i am. well, before you fall over yourselves wondering what kind of spell this is, i'll tell you now that i can't turn myself into a crow. i can simply manipulate its thoughts a bit, use certain facilities in order to talk to you. i am sorry that i can't be there to talk to you personally, but the state of my own realm is too pressing for me to think about leaving it for a second."

kyungsoo feels the tension cutting through his thoughts. the idea that luhan could shape-shift was unsettling enough; the fact that his ability extends to animals as well, that he can trigger even forgotten abilities was downright terrifying.

"scary, isn't it, kyungsoo?"

kyungsoo starts. the crow is looking at him, and when their gazes meet, it tilts its head. kyungsoo swallows down any fear floating around in his mind and remembers that luhan can read minds as well.

"so this is jongin's favorite new project," the crow says, flapping its wings and landing right on top of kyungsoo's marmalade-slathered toast. "no wonder he took interest. you have a remarkable affinity with the earth, young one."

junmyeon clears his throat. "luhan," he says, and draws himself up taller when the crow's attention reverts to him, "why are you here? or rather, why did you send this crow here?"

"well, junmyeon," the crow says, tilting its black feathered head, "a squirrel told me about the notices you've sent out, regarding the lack of energy in the realm."

junmyeon's face hardens. "is that it, then? is this a declaration of war between our realms, because now we are weaker?" his hands ball up into fists and minseok rises to stand behind him.

"no, not war," 'luhan' says. "but alliance."

"alliance," junmyeon repeats, and the word is echoed on sehun's and chanyeol's lips. kyungsoo stares at the crow, thinking of jongin destroying so many parts of the realm, leaving him with scraps of energy every night after he'd wrung himself dry of spells and runes that could return the land to the way it once was.

"yes, an alliance." the crow scratches the table. "my realm is in the same state right now. a week and a half ago, people were reporting incidents in which they could not summon their pet newt anymore or aid the brewing of poison --"

"the brewing of poison," minseok whispers, eyes wide, fingers bunching up his robes.

'luhan' laughs. "i'm kidding. we don't brew poison, but the common folk in our realm use magic for everyday necessities, the way that people do in yours. for days i've sent eyes and ears to tell me if this was happening in my realm, but when news reached me that yours was affected the same way, i knew i had to work with you."

"why would we want to do that?" junmyeon asks, bringing his hands up to his temples.

"because you and i both know that there isn't much energy left," the crow says, and for the first time since his arrival, he sounds sober. serious. a little desperate, even, if kyungsoo listens hard enough. "yes, kyungsoo, i am desperate." kyungsoo sits up straight in his seat. "i am desperate enough to offer an alliance to a group of wizards i've never had to work with in the past. junmyeon, between us, there isn't enough magic left. but perhaps if we work together, if we pool our ideas and spells and runes, we may be able to find something that will help the land recover lost energy and start regenerating again."

"i need time to think about this," junmyeon says, a sigh audible in his words.

"you need to think about it now," 'luhan' says. "you need to give me an answer now, because the longer we take to act, the more impossible it will be to find the answer."

for a moment, silence courses through every single person in the room, fast and flowing like a river searching for an end. then junmyeon says, "i am putting this decision up for a council vote. sehun?"

the air wizard shifts in his seat. "i don't trust them," he states, his brows knitted together as he looks at the bird, "but he speaks with a lot of sense. we do need to work together -- to pool whatever we have at our disposal in order to procure a solution. i vote yes."

"chanyeol?"

"i vote no," the fire wizard says, his eyes like flint. deep in his irises, kyungsoo can almost see the image of sola broken and bent, a graveyard of rubble. "they've attacked our realm before. i see no point in helping them when this must be a ploy for something else."

"it's not a ploy," the crow says. "believe you me, if it were i would reach across the miles and manipulate you into voting yes. no one would be the wiser. the fact that i have let you all speak your mind without altering your thoughts should tell you that i am sincere in offering this alliance to you. as for those attacks...i've personally sent jongin to a cell to mull over his actions." a cluck resounds from its beak. "i and the heads of the council before me don't like to meddle with the other realm's affairs. jongin acted without my permission, and he has been punished for it."

"but if you can read minds," kyungsoo pipes up, biting down his lip when the crow's head swivels to face him, "why couldn't you have just read his intentions from the start?"

"you know so much about us of the dark realm," 'luhan' says, "and yet you know so little. jongin is a wizard who manipulates the very fabric of space. therefore his thoughts when he casts his spells are not quite there -- they are dimensionless, abstract, hard to make sense of. his mind is a black hole. whoever peers in will get crushed. i have tried once before; i have tried, and i have learned that there are limits to the abilities one is gifted with. it is not possible for me to read his mind. it is possible, however, to read the guilt resting on his shoulders, send scouts after him when he leaves, and wring the truth out of him when he comes back."

kyungsoo shudders. "i see."

"your vote, minseok?" junmyeon asks.

the ice wizard blinks, regarding the crow with a certain thoughtfulness. "i think," he says, "that he's telling the truth. i can't be sure, and i don't know if this will work, but it is better for us to do something at least. i vote yes."

"kyungsoo?"

"i'm sorry," kyungsoo says to no one in particular, "but i vote no. even if what you say about jongin is true, it does not erase the fact that i've had to clean up his messes and make up for the destruction he's caused. for that reason alone, i cannot find it in myself to trust you."

the crow flaps its wings. "i thought you would put your head over your heart, but it seems it isn't so. well," and it angles its body to face junmyeon, "you're the last one, wizard of water, whether pure or soiled."

junmyeon frowns. everyone else in the room waits, strung on wires and bodies too stiff to keep themselves from breaking when they bend.

"i think," junmyeon says, "that whether or not we can trust you, and whether or not you're telling the truth is beside the point. minseok is right. we have to do something. and it makes sense to join forces so we can fill in the gaps of our knowledge and create something that may help the energy in the land regenerate again."

kyungsoo thinks he imagines it, but it seems like the crow almost heaves a sigh of relief. across from him, chanyeol is barely holding on to the strings of his anger before he snaps, and sehun's hand is on his arm to stop him in case he does. kyungsoo doesn't know what to feel. he doesn't know what he'll do if -- when -- he sees jongin again, sees the hands behind the rips and tears he's had to patch up over the last few months. he doesn't know what thoughts to form about the alliance, about working with wizards who've dabbled in magic far different from his own.

"wise choice," the crow says, and it spreads its wings as it bends its right leg in an attempt at a bow. "chanyeol, it is best to save your anger and channel it into hard work. kyungsoo, your confusion is overwhelming. for the rest -- thank you. may we work well together." 

it begins to flap away, but just before it hops out the window, the crow turns back to say, "three days from now, a couple of miles into the forest straddling our realms, we will meet. be there no later than sunset and no earlier than the peak of the sun."

kyungsoo stares at his toast and decides his appetite is truly lost.

 

 

kyungsoo goes through his rucksack one last time before he is due to meet the other members of the inner council. pots rattle against pans, books wrestle with pens, and he hopes no one ever tries to dig deep enough to find the sapling that he's decided to bring along. there are plenty of trees in the forest they're headed to, he knows, but they're not the same kind of trees that's surrounded him his entire life. they're foreign, with leaves molded to life in different ways and bark that's scabbed over with the paw prints of animals scurrying up and down the trunk. he just wants something that might help him hold onto a breath of home.

minseok and junmyeon are already at the academy with their respective rucksacks when kyungsoo finally hauls himself out of the greenhouse. chanyeol, he thinks, must still be split into fractions trying to decide what to bring. sehun isn't on the punctual side, either. he sets down his rucksack and joins minseok and junmyeon's conversation.

none of them knew how long this would take and what would happen. right after the crow had spread out its wings and left a streak of black across the clouds, junmyeon had gone and issued a notice about how the inner council would be gone for a while in order to find a solution. he'd appointed five wizards to act in their stead: minho, who had been fire wizard before chanyeol had come along and the fire chair had switched its allegiance; ryeowook, kyungsoo's mentor, who'd been ejected by the earth chair several summers ago as it also changed allegiance; heechul, one of minseok's mentors when he'd still been studying at the academy and was also a friend of jaejoong; jinki, who'd worn out his tenure as the air wizard and had to be coaxed out of his hut in the mountains; and leeteuk,the head of the council until the year junmyeon had taken the exams and claimed the position. they'd been installed to their jobs the day after, while the current inner council had plotted and talked.

last night, chanyeol had driven a bread knife through the table in frustration. kyungsoo shivers whenever the image of his friend appears in his thoughts, the perpetual leap of fire in chanyeol's eyes seeming malicious. he knows the fire wizard is stressed -- that, along with kyungsoo, he hadn't wanted to agree to luhan's plan. still kyungsoo prays that chanyeol will at least stay calm when they meet the wizards of the dark realm.

the mood is dark when chanyeol and sehun arrive on each other's heels. it feels different, with the five of them standing in a circle, looking at each other and searching for something, anything -- for reassurance, for a sign of what is to come. but there is none, and kyungsoo sees the familiar twitch in chanyeol's eye as he holds back a wayward spark of magic. they shoulder their rucksacks and become intimate with the weight they will lug along with them for a while, the weight of home and hope and perhaps the future. then they board the shuttles that will take them just a few feet away from the forest.

kyungsoo had placed a hand on the earth earlier this morning. his palm, flat on the ground with the dirt playing hide and seek in the spaces between his fingers; his mind, probing and pushing aside layers of soil. not to do magic but to ask the earth, one last time, what had gone wrong. it had been quiet. unresponsive. as if it decided that it wanted to sleep though the previous day's snowfall had woven a pure white carpet for it.

now he tries to ignore the apprehension rolling off of the shoulders of the shuttle's driver. he's never going to be close enough to face the wonders -- and horrors -- of the forests at the realm's borders, but still the fear is there. it's curious, kyungsoo thinks, how one can smell emotions on a person. how the essence is there, untouched despite the surroundings, and how the notes are so distinct still.

he doesn't know what he's going to do when he sees jongin again. perhaps it's best for both parties if he and jongin fashion some kind of invisible wall between them and pretend the other doesn't exist. it's been months but kyungsoo isn't quick to forgive; and no one among the inner council of the light realm is in a hurry to forget. this is an alliance born out of the womb of necessity. junmyeon is right. they have no other options. that doesn't mean anyone, kyungsoo included, is going to trust the trio of the dark realm.

they make it to the borders just as the sun has climbed up to its perch in the sky, cold and distant and frosted over. kyungsoo steps out of the shuttle with his rucksack on his shoulders, and he and the four others wave away the shuttles. then the five of them of them form a line, a front that feels as solid as it is ever going to be: junmyeon at the center, minseok and kyungsoo on either side of him, sehun beside minseok and chanyeol beside kyungsoo.

none of them speak as they take each step, the sound muffled by the thick layer of snow. kyungsoo notices that none of the trees in the forest seem to be affected by winter at all, their branches heavy with leaves. he wonders if the others have noticed as well.

when they slip through the gaps in the trees, it feels like they've plunged deep into the heart of the cold. kyungsoo wraps his robes closer around him and looks up. the canopy offers little to no glimpse of the sky, seeming determined to keep out a canvas of hope and warmth, and he knows minseok is thinking of controlling the temperature a bit so that they'll be comfortable. but then he must realize that the air around them is foreign -- that the magic circulating here is some neglected cousin of theirs in the light realm, a forgotten thing, left to rot or thrive according to its will. kyungsoo stomps on the earth and beneath it comes in contact with the same foreign quality. the grains are different; the dirt doesn't quite feel like dirt.

"such a dangerous thing, this forest."

kyungsoo hears chanyeol swear to his right. the voice sounds like it's coming from all sides at once, but the crunch of boots ahead baits his gaze. three figures emerge from the trees, robes of black swirling around their forms, hoods up. the one at the front, leading the other two, chuckles.

"no need to be so guarded," he says, and there is a melodic lilt to his words that reminds kyungsoo of a crow at their dinner table. "yes, you've thought right, kyungsoo. i am luhan, head of the dark realm's wizard council, a student of thought and some say the will of any living being." pale hands stand out against the somber color of his robes as he hooks his fingers on the edges of his hood and pulls it down.

when he'd first heard of the dark realm, kyungsoo had thought of a man with detachment leaking from every pore, eyes bottomless and blank. he'd thought of someone with harsh angles and sharp features for a face -- someone from whom he would be able to see the cost of living in shadows.

kyungsoo isn't prepared to see this -- to see a face that looks delicate, even pretty. there is a hint of rose on luhan's cheeks and his eyes hold secrets in them, delightful secrets twinkling beneath the honeyed brown of his irises. everything about him screams soft and light and airy, a child more than a man, and kyungsoo can't quite believe that this is what the head of dark realm's council looks like.

luhan pouts. "i don't appreciate that, you know," he says. "i'm probably older than most of you no matter how child-like i look, and i don't get why you'd think i don't look like someone who'd be leading the dark realm." he huffs, and kyungsoo almost laughs at how he stomps his feet in indignation. "anyway, this is zitao," he waves a hand to his left, "and you've met jongin before in, ah, unpleasant circumstances," and he waves a hand to his right.

the two lower their hoods at the same time. their features are heavier, their expressions less given to smiling. zitao is taller than either luhan or jongin, and there is something about his gaze that makes kyungsoo feel he is being watched, weighed. the way he tilts his head is cat-like in its curiosity, his lips set in a firm line. kyungsoo avoids looking at jongin. he's not sure if he wants to test it, to recall that burst, that certainty he once had that he would kill him should they ever meet him again. this alliance is tenuous as it is.

junmyeon clears his throat and steps forward. "my name is junmyeon --"

"we know who you are," luhan cuts in. "i've been reading your minds, remember?" he nods at junmyeon. "it is a pleasure to meet the head of the light realm's council, junmyeon; and one, it seems, who is much more intelligent than his appearance betrays."

junmyeon opens his arms, stretching them outward, and says, "what is the plan?"

"before that," luhan says, "i'd just like to tell chanyeol that the only thing being resentful would do is release the pent-up energy inside you and set the forest on fire. not only would it be a waste, considering the current dilemma of almost no energy regenerating throughout the land, it would also put everyone in grave danger. this forest is far more ancient than any lineage or family tree; it is as old as the land itself. therefore the atmosphere and the magic here are different. should any of the trees get hurt, we will pay with our lives, and you will pay with your soul."

a chill races up kyungsoo's spine and he steps to the side, taking hold of chanyeol's forearm and squeezing it. "be still," he says. "for everyone's sake, be still. i don't like this any more than you do, but this is the only option we have at the moment."

chanyeol doesn't answer, but the tension riding across the line of his back seems to subside a bit as he works to keep his emotions stuffed tight in a jar.

"alright." luhan claps his hands. "i proposed for us to meet in this place so that neither side can be at a disadvantage -- the nature of the magic in your realm is different from the magic in ours. thus we'll stay here in the border to work out a solution, a spell, to return the land to how it is."

"this can't be fixed with a single spell," jongin mutters.

luhan turns to him. "then what do you suggest?"

silence rises up to face his words. luhan shakes his head.

"i've asked you again and again what you think must be done but you don't say anything. and you know i can't pull out the answer from the depths of _your_ mind, jongin. no, it can't be fixed with a single spell, but if we weave enough magic for a powerful one, it might restore the land to the way it once was."

"and if it doesn't?" zitao pipes up.

"if it doesn't," luhan says, "then there will be no more wizards in the land, dark or light, and we will all have to learn how to live without the ease that magic brings us. that is, if the consequences aren't worse than that."

"so we will just set up camp here in this forest and get to work?" kyungsoo asks, a touch bemused.

"no, no," luhan says, shaking his head, at the same time that zitao says, "this is only the first forest you will encounter. if we walk deeper into it, we'll pass through a tunnel that will take us to some fields of sand and patches of grass. that's where we'll set up camp.”

"a temporary truce, then," minseok says. "neither side should hurt the other or else there _will_ be war."

all eyes are now turned to the figure standing to the right of luhan. jongin's face is a blank canvas, no emotions sprayed upon it, and his voice is kept neutral as he says, "no one will be hurt."

luhan considers his companion's countenance, but the ridge on his brow and the questions screaming in his eyes are enough confirmation that he can't read jongin's thoughts. this mind he is barred from entering.

"well," junmyeon says, clapping his hands, "let's start!"


	5. Chapter 5

three twilights have shot through the skies since the beginning of the alliance, and minseok, junmyeon and luhan seem to be the only ones who are comfortable enough to huddle together and talk. zitao -- cut down to _tao_ by luhan because he says two syllables is too long -- has his rare moments of eloquence, often on the tail end of his changing moods. sehun's tolerating his outbursts so far, though the air wizard is still painted in shades of distrust ever since tao had admitted to being the one to create the time loop that had inflicted injuries on sehun. kyungsoo speaks to jongin in staccato beats of _pass me this_ or _have you seen this thing?_. chanyeol doesn't speak at all.

no one, it turns out, has much of a plan. after they'd set up their tents in the fields on the first day, junmyeon had proposed scanning through textbooks and picking out spells pertaining to energy and the earth. they abandoned that by the next day, because it was starting to look like the books wouldn't give them anything to work with. luhan had then asked tao to just rewind time to the last moment before the energy stopped regenerating, but he'd gotten a glare in return and a terse "what would that solve? we'll just keep coming back and never try to go forward."

now they've divided into groups, discussing the possible causes of the phenomenon. to kyungsoo it's all just a delayed white flag surrender; they're prolonging the inevitable, that perhaps there is no way to restore the energy. maybe, he thinks, it's a fluke. maybe the energy will come rushing through the cracks in a few days.

as the sky darkens and minseok gets a fire going for a dinner of fish that tao had speared from a nearby lake with his sword, chanyeol slides down next to kyungsoo with a scowl on his face. "we're not going anywhere with this," he says. "it doesn't look like anyone has any idea what to do at all."

kyungsoo bites his lip. "it would be easier if the earth hadn't stopped...talking to me. i can't tell what it feels; i can't get information out of it anymore. it's been silent for a while now."

"these days i feel like the flames are dying inside me," chanyeol murmurs. "it's -- well, my hands are always quick to produce balls of fire but now, it takes a lot of concentration to produce even the tiniest spark. and i'm not the only one like this. sehun says he can't glean anything from the air nowadays."

"i don't know what to do without magic," kyungsoo whispers. 

"i don't know either."

they sit there drowning in pauses and fears, watching minseok try to coax a word out of tao. luhan and junmyeon are deep in discussion. sehun is walking along the edges of the camp, brows furrowed and mouth turned down. jongin's melted into the darkness at the farthest corner, sitting cross-legged with his robes embracing the sand, and he's examining his hand in the fading light.

"let's take a walk," kyungsoo suggests after his thoughts have rattled around his brain so much, that he's left feeling a bit dizzy. choked. he rises to his feet with a quick shout to junmyeon that he and chanyeol are going somewhere. he doesn't think junmyeon even knows what he's nodding to as luhan begins to draw some kind of diagram on the sand. 

he and chanyeol have no words to spare between them, their footsteps the only things breaking the stillness floating down the fields like a blanket. they don't have much of a destination, their paths leading straight onwards, and though the clouds are smeared navy and looking for places to hide, they keep walking. 

kyungsoo is so used to the quiet that when he hears the _crackle_ and _pop_ of a fire, and a series of raucous conversation following it, he stops in his tracks. he glances over to see that chanyeol's stopped too, and in the moonlight his expression is just as confused. 

they braid themselves into each other's side, then, taking each step slow and easy. ears pricked, eyes open. kyungsoo's starting to think it had just been a figment of his imagination when he and chanyeol climb up a rise and spot the cluster of tents curled up at the bottom of a downward slope. this far, neither can make out any details, but the human voices wafting toward them presses them both to move closer. 

they're hovering on the fringes of the rogue camp when one of the people tending to the fire looks up. his eyes are sleepy, unfocused; his hair falls in haphazard ways across his face. he straightens.

"who are you?"

kyungsoo freezes, throat jammed with anxiety. chanyeol is doing a good job of mimicking a statue beside him. 

at once, four heads swivel to face them, each one bearing varying degrees of surprise. a guy with silvery hair unfolds himself from his position on the ground, and when he's standing straight and still he looks to be taller than even chanyeol. "what are you doing here?" he says, his tone guarded and drawn tight.

a fair-skinned guy with dark hair frowns as he appraises them, delicate hands traveling across his robes in search of something. the only one who doesn't seem to see them as a threat is a guy with features cast in angles and sharp lines, the corners of his lips curling upwards. 

"what are _you_ doing here?" chanyeol blurts out. "shouldn't you be back home in the realm?"

the guy with silvery hair narrows his eyes. "we don't belong to any realm," he says. "we walk the borders and wander the lands out of our own volition. now, tell us your names."

kyungsoo hesitates for a fraction of a second. "you can call me kyungsoo. my companion's name is chanyeol."

"kyungsoo, chanyeol," the guy repeats."my name is wu fan. my companions are called baekhyun," he points to the guy who has now taken out some kind of bracelet from the pocket of his robes, "jongdae," and he points to the guy with the smile that's growing wider, "and yixing." the last one, yixing, shakes his head and musters a small smile. "well, the borders are not owned by anyone, so we are all free to roam. we ask you, kyungsoo and chanyeol, to not bother us. in return, we will leave you alone."

"isn't it lonely?" kyungsoo says out loud. he catches wu fan's confused look. "i mean, just wandering. are you looking for something? it's not safe, there's only four of you."

wu fan and yixing exchange glances. after a beat, yixing's soft voice threads its way through to kyungsoo's ear. "we're looking for magic," he murmurs. "magic like our own."

kyungsoo blinks. "magic like your own?"

yixing nods but doesn't elaborate. it doesn't look like anyone else is willing to jump into the fray, either; jongdae's taken charge of poking the bonfire, baekhyun is playing with his bracelet, and wufan is looking up at the skies. kyungsoo's just about to crack open his mouth when a shout rips the silence and leaves peace in tatters.

"kyungsoo! chanyeol!"

they all turn just in time to see luhan and junmyeon running toward them. kyungsoo hears a gasp behind him; he glances back to see baekhyun with his jaw hanging in shock. a faint "aren't those the heads of the wizard councils for the dark and the light realms?" escapes his vocal cords.

and when luhan and junmyeon come to a stop in front of them, when the four rogues have blinked away shock as much as possible, when kyungsoo and chanyeol are well into reciting the first set of apologies for wandering too far and making them worry, something shifts. luhan's eyes are looking straight ahead but they're clouded over, and yixing is the sole person who doesn't try to avoid his gaze.

"wizards," he murmurs, no longer listening to what kyungsoo and chanyeol are saying, "the four of you are wizards. but not the usual kind, and you're seeking others who are the same."

there is an edge to the laughter that flees from baekhyun's mouth.

junmyeon assesses luhan's frame, the set of his shoulders, the line of his lips. then:

"do you want to join us tonight?"

 

 

cramming twelve people into a single camp site doesn’t bode well for anyone involved. soon it becomes apparent what each person’s personality is, and it’s information that everyone keeps track of.

luhan is perhaps the most sociable, flitting from person to person (and mind to mind) with little to no sense of privacy. his ability, it seems, isn’t restricted by the sparse energy left in the land. as he tells the group over one of their bonfire dinners when it seems silence is a constant dinner companion, he’d been reading minds ever since he was four years old and toddling his way around the house. sometimes he speaks to someone in the depths of his mind, his humor and his wit shining the whole way through, and it takes everyone some getting used to.

junmyeon is nowhere near as talkative as luhan but he is steady, still, offering advice and handling the constant blow-ups with infinite patience. he diffuses the tensions, makes them dissipate into smoke that slips through his fingers. minseok is almost the same in temperament, if not entirely equal. he likes to sit on the edges of the campsite and draw figures on the sand with a stick, instead of getting involved with any of the disputes. where junmyeon moves past his boiling point, minseok is consoling, a security blanket draped over the water wizard when he needs a bit of dampening.

wu fan is unreadable, though luhan appears to be able to access his thoughts. his guards are all the way up, and kyungsoo can’t blame him when he, as the clear leader of his little band, has to face the wizards that run the realms they have left behind them. there is an odd, inquiring tilt to his head, and a flicker of uneasiness in his eyes, when they explain to him what they’ve come to the borders for. he hasn’t offered up his secrets--about the kind of magic he does, about what he knows the borders hold, about much of anything other than a few survival tips--though kyungsoo knows that if luhan really wants to rummage around, he will. it seems the mind-reader is willing to wait for wu fan to speak up himself, though, and when kyungsoo nurses that thought, luhan looks up sharply to shoot him a knowing smile. wu fan also appears the most receptive towards junmyeon, but that may just be down to junmyeon having the kind of demeanor that garners trust.

chanyeol’s resentment has lifted somewhat, as he strikes up a friendship with a hesitant baekhyun. kyungsoo’s known the fire wizard for a long time, and he can see the signs of a growing infatuation. he has no plans to stop it. baekhyun may not speak much, only choosing to laugh and talk when wu fan, jongdae, and yixing are around, but kyungsoo doesn’t sense malicious intent in him. in any of them, really. besides, chanyeol has groaned and moaned enough about his lack of a love life, and kyungsoo finds this development a respite from always being on the receiving end of those rants.

yixing and jongdae are inseparable, almost, though they warm inexplicably to luhan. minseok joins the three of them, too, when they chat, and when junmyeon and wu fan come around, the six of them form the group that actually is making some progress towards building a solution to the lack of magical energy. in general, though, the rogue magic-users are wary about demonstrating any of their abilities. if luhan has gleaned the information by now--and kyungsoo can tell he has--then it seems he’s decided that none of it is in any way harmful.

sehun and tao, both the youngest in their respective councils, continue to sulk. they’re not used to not being without magic, and are probably the ones who are the worst at hiding their displeasure. they’ve since caused one too many fights among the group, inciting not only the members of their councils, but also the rogues. kyungsoo’s talked to sehun about curbing his petulance, and luhan has also given tao a talking-to, but it doesn’t seem they’ll calm down anytime soon. kyungsoo just hopes they’ll somehow mature overnight.

jongin remains on the edges. he doesn’t overtly spurn anyone, but he doesn’t try to assimilate, either, spending long moments of time poring over thick leather tomes that only he can open and understand. sometimes he sits on a rock and gazes out to the tree line. other times, kyungsoo can feel the weight of jongin’s gaze on him, though he never does anything to acknowledge it. instead he focuses on the ground, the earth beneath, the grains of sand; he digs and digs, aware of jongin’s darkness but not giving in to his curiosity to know the truth behind jongin’s stares.

this is the most silent that his element has ever been. it nudges at kyungsoo like poison in his system, slow to kill but all the more dreadful for the delayed pain: the realization that he might not create things again. the world can crumble to pieces, and he will no longer have the power to re-create it again, build it anew. he will no longer be able to coax flowers and trees into bloom, or make the barren soil fertile again, or shift and churn the ground to the texture that he likes. 

it isn’t something he likes to voice, not when every day it seems they’re no closer to finding answers, and the energy drain hangs heavy over their heads. so he bundles it up; turns it into a ball. tucks it into a corner. and he’s back to work, just like that, asking the earth, _are you there?_

 

 

it doesn’t take long before junmyeon decides to rumble the hornets’ nest.

they still have no idea of the rogues’ talents, but the greater issue is that they need more information to augment the bare bones of the energy restoration ritual that luhan and junmyeon have come up with. wu fan, for whatever reason he hasn't disclosed, seems to have decided that he and his band will stick around to help. for days, the six--luhan, junmyeon, wu fan, yixing, jongdae, and minseok--have begun to weave together a spell glutted from a hodgepodge of textbooks, augmented by what the rogues know of how magic works for them, in particular. they are more forthcoming about the mechanics of it, rather than the specifics: that theirs manifest more as abilities, not tied as directly to the land's magical energy, and so they've not felt the same drain while using their magic. however, jongdae has pointed out that the borders are infused with a different kind of energy source--untapped, not easily accessible, and foreign in nature--that must be why they have so far been unaffected. junmyeon and luhan have worked out that the energy drain has been more of a spread, starting first with those less magically inclined, and working its way through to those specifically attuned to the primary elements of the realms they belong in. since the rogues' abilities are unusual, it hasn't gotten to them yet.

"it seems to be somewhat like a disease," minseok says, while they're gathered around the campfire one night. "there are certain spells, first, and magical signatures that it must recognize. it's easier to get to the ones that have been constantly using it to harness their respective elements, because in a way they've formed a direct route to the energy source with their constant usage. and then it goes by the level of resistance, so to speak. common folk won't have built up their own magical reserves like the wizards. which is why we've weathered it out this long, really, because we've been trained to carry our own reserves."

"and our abilities are kind of mutations," jongdae adds, leaning over to toss another log of wood into the campfire. "as well as the fact that we've spent most of our time in the past few years living on the borders, where the energy source has been so far not exposed to constant use. then, theoretically, if you try to draw on the energy here, shouldn't you be able to use magic still?"

chanyeol stands up and begins to pace. it's a habit of his, to walk while he thinks, because otherwise his restlessness will result to a conflagration. "but we can't move the realms here," he says. "it's just not big enough, and what of the lives that have already been built--no one will agree to being uprooted. it isn't like we can take the energy in buckets, either, what if the drain spreads here and contaminates the source? it's best we keep this as an emergency reserve of sorts."

"besides," kyungsoo says, and all eyes turn to him, "if that's true, i should be able to talk to the land. it isn't speaking to me."

the others weigh this information. from across the campfire, kyungsoo can see the conflict on jongdae's face; it seems he's been counting on the theory that the borders may be the key to the problem. kyungsoo thinks it might hold water, if only they can come up with an explanation for the land's silence.

"but, if it is as foreign as jongdae has speculated it is," luhan says, a far-away look in his eyes, "then it might not just be that you are speaking to it in another language?"

kyungsoo blinks. "what do you mean?"

"i mean, think of it this way," luhan says, now standing up as well, though he doesn't pace. the light from the fire flickers all over his face, making him appear older than he usually does. "let's say the energy source is foreign. we know the energy source is also tied to the characteristics of the land--the trees, the soil, the rocks. and if the magic it recognizes is different, then might it not be because it simply hasn't come to know you yet? or that it hasn't woken enough to your presence to respond?"

kyungsoo rolls that notion over in his head. hope is blossoming in his chest, but the thought that this might be the answer, that he hasn't lost the link that's given him comfort and company over the years… the relief of it is almost overwhelming, though he tries to stay impartial in case the theory is wrong.

still. he might be able to speak to the land again, one day.

"so say, jongdae is right." junmyeon is sitting up straighter, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "then what we need to do is to cure the disease in some way. either we re-route the energy from the borders down to the realms, or we perform a ritual that will change our magical signatures enough so the drain will no longer recognize us."

"that's one thing we can try," wu fan says. "but where do we start?"

"we can look through spells in the textbooks," junmyeon says, " so we can put together an entirely different one for a redirection of energy, sort of how we harness it from the land to ourselves, but this time it's from land to land. but what we really need to know, i think, is to understand exactly how different the energy is. wu fan, are you the only ones with these unique abilities?"

wu fan shakes his head. "no. the borders are home to many camps. some of them are huge communities."

junmyeon nods. "good. then some of us can go scout, while the others stay back to do the spell."

luhan's head shoots up. "junmyeon, they're not going to be happy with that suggestion."

kyungsoo looks from one leader to the other, as they begin to communicate through their thoughts. a frown settles on junmyeon's face, while luhan raises his eyebrows, and then junmyeon sends him back a placating look. "we have to try," he says at last.

"let it be known that i think this is the correct action to take," luhan says, "even if not everyone may be so receptive."

"what is your plan, junmyeon?" wu fan asks, leaning forward in anticipation.

"we need to put people in charge of building the ritual from the spells we already know, while drawing on the energy of the land. and we need to send people to investigate the energy source itself, and those who rely on it, such as the border camps we've mentioned. we'll need to split up."

it hits kyungsoo then. "we're not going to like how you'll be grouping us, are we?" 

junmyeon faces him. "some of you won't."

tension blankets the camp then. luhan nods at junmyeon, and the head of the light realm's inner council takes a deep breath. "for the first, it'll have to be the ones with the most knowledge--luhan, me, and minseok, along with wu fan for the knowledge of the energy source." 

that isn't so bad, since all four seem to get along well. still, it also means that the likelihood of kyungsoo ending up with someone he's not comfortable with, has just increased.

"then the rest, we can split up into groups of three or two," junmyeon continues, "with each one having a guide from wu fan's group so you can make it to the border camps and have someone liaise. and, to balance it all out, at representative from the light and dark realms each, so you can have a counterpoint to the other's magic."

there are protests, mostly from sehun and tao. kyungsoo doesn't relish the prospect, either; it means he's with jongin, tao, or one of the rogues. the latter seem to be alright, but kyungsoo has a fairly vague idea of where junmyeon is heading to, and he doesn't like it one bit.

"yixing needs to stay back as well," wu fan interrupts. "his ability is--let's just say it's necessary for when you are planning to play around with wild magic. we need him here; and i can't switch out for him, either, because if you want to tap the border's energy source, i know it more than he does."

junmyeon pauses. "but how is one team going to get around? we can group them all together, but that will be chaos, and we need to investigate as much as we can in a short amount of time."

from behind junmyeon, luhan calls, "jongin."

kyungsoo, for once, turns to look at the dark wizard. he's leaning against a tent, face inscrutable. jongin hasn't said much so far. now, he gazes back at luhan with an eerie sort of calm, the darkness snaking towards him.

"i know you've been to the border camps," luhan says. "will you know the way?"

there is a beat. then jongin says, "yes." his voice sounds as though it's been pulled out of him without his consent. it rasps, rough and ragged, and kyungsoo tamps down a shudder of fear.

"then jongin will be the one to lead," luhan says, nodding to himself, "and kyungsoo with him, to keep him in check if jongin decides to go around destroying things again."

"i won't," jongin says, the sound of it almost non-existent, at the same time as kyungsoo shoots up and protests, "you're putting me together with _him_?"

"kyungsoo, calm down," minseok tries, but kyungsoo won't be swayed.

he can feel the anger, the _urge_ , almost like a living thing in his veins, his emotions tangling together. he can see luhan wince at what must be the turmoil within kyungsoo, and kyungsoo thinks, _good_. because who in their right mind puts _enemies_ together? 

"i've had to clean up after his messes just recently," he spits out. "i have no reason to trust him with my back, with my life, with this undertaking. we will kill each other."

"no." kyungsoo whips around, and finds jongin suddenly just steps away from him. "no. i will not, and do not have, any reason to kill you. but _you_ do."

kyungsoo balls his hands into fists. jongin looks back at him, as though telling him he will take the hit, and will not suffer overmuch from it. 

"kyungsoo," junmyeon says, "that exactly is it. you and jongin counter each other, balance each other. you can keep him in check if you want."

"and," jongin adds, tone dry, "as i've just pointed out, i have more to fear from you than you have to fear from me."

in many ways, he is right, but kyungsoo can't still quite calm down. "i'm doing this only because i want to fix this _disease_ ," he spits out. "but don't think i'm not capable of taking you down if you go back to your ways."

jongin just tilts his head in acknowledgment.

kyungsoo has to walk around the edges to the camp to calm down, and so he catches snippets of other protests. baekhyun ends up with chanyeol; they seem to be the only ones who are alright with their arrangement. but sehun and tao are not so, and for a while they come close to calling on their magic, before they resort to an actual fist fight. sehun is flighty wind, who has actually been directly hurt by tao, and tao is no better at explaining the unknown grudge he has against the air wizard. it seems that it won't take much to get them going at all--just a harsh word, and the claws are out between them, even if jongdae will be accompanying them as well. it takes jongdae, wu fan, and junmyeon to get them apart, and then scold the petulance away from them. they end up sitting on opposite ends around the campfire, each still pouting. 

kyungsoo returns to the campfire once he feels a little bit more like himself, though the anger still simmers. in his mind, the images of ruined earth and crumbling cities, remain fresh.

"tomorrow, we prepare," junmyeon says. "and the day after, the seven of you will set out, while the rest of us stay back. find the border camps, learn their ways, investigate their energy source. obtain all the information you can. you should be back by the next full moon at the latest; i expect that's when we will be done with the spell."

kyungsoo takes that in. that means roughly three weeks with jongin, alone. he will have to search out his dagger, and keep it on him at all times, just in case jongin thinks that no magic means kyungsoo is defenseless.

as he turns to settle in for the night, he can feel the weight of jongin's gaze on him again, heavy. almost expectant. kyungsoo's fingers curl around the edge of the tent flap, and then he snaps it down shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so we're a chapter away from the beginning of the kyungsoo-jongin focus! thought a lot about if I should end it here, or keep going, but then I felt it would be better to hold off on that arc so we can go through the stages of it properly. also, it's easier for me as well to constantly update if I keep the chapter length short, rather than pushing to 10k per chapter--which means more chapters for this arc, and bi-weekly updates!
> 
> if you've been following this story for a while, thank you for your patience.
> 
> fic update schedule:  
> 11/26/2017 - Wildfire, 2/?  
> 12/03/2017 - landfall, 4/4  
> 12/10/2017 - when our souls grow dark, [dark!arc], 6/?


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